As the fashion resale market continues to grow, Just Style reveals the three key trends to watch out for in 2025.

A GlobalData report titled ‘Global Apparel Resale Market to 2028’ suggests that as the resale market becomes more established and a growing number of players enter the field there will be three key trends defining fashion resale over the next three years.

Fashion resale trend 1: More fashion retailers will enter the fashion resale market 

The report explains that an increasing number of fashion retailers have entered the resale market to try and stop spend from being “stolen” from resale marketplaces such as Vinted and Depop. 

GlobalData notes it is unlikely that fashion retailers and brands will ever be able to fully compete with marketplace-style resale platforms, as their ranges will be much smaller and also more expensive. For this reason many are choosing to launch resale by partnering with well-known specialists to leverage their operational expertise.

GlobalData says these initiatives do provide retailers with the opportunity to diversify their revenue streams and strengthen brand perceptions with 72.8% of UK fashion shoppers more likely to shop with a retailer/brand that offers secondhand as

well as new items. Plus, 80.8% perceive retailers and brands that offer secondhand to be more sustainable based on a GlobalData UK analysis conducted in June 2024. 

UK department stores, such as Harvey Nichols, John Lewis and Frasers, are increasingly entering the resale market. 

For example, last October (2024) Harvey Nichols joined forces with pre-owned designer marketplace Luxury Promise to launch a three-month pop-up. It featured items from the 1990s and 2000s to tap into the popular Y2K trend. 

GlobalData suggests that if successful, Harvey Nichols should follow in the footsteps of its rivals Selfridges and John Lewis and consider making this permanent. John Lewis also experimented with a resale collaboration with designer platform Sign of The Times within its Peter Jones store in London, Chelsea back in 2023 and made it permanent in 2024. 

Last summer John Lewis launched a 12-month concession with children’s resale platform thelittleloop at its London Oxford Street flagship to give parents an affordable and sustainable childrenswear option for their fast-growing children. 

The concession was promoted through community events such as patching workshops and shoppers could pick up a clear-out bag in store to fill with old clothes to be listed on thelittleloop. GlobalData says John Lewis should consider rolling out this concession to its other stores to allow more of its customers to reap the benefits.

In September, Primark launched its first Swap Shop initiative in collaboration with circular clothing company Verte within three of its UK stores – London, Manchester and Birmingham. 

The Swap Shops allowed consumers to bring in up to five fashion items in good

condition to be assessed and swapped for digital tokens on the Verte app. The tokens could then be spent on secondhand items from Verte’s collection. The

initiative helped bring some awareness to Verte’s circular consumption model, as well as improve Primark’s sustainability credentials.

In France, Parisian department store Galleries Lafayette expanded its collaboration with secondhand player Jaiio beyond its flagship with an opening in its Strasbourg

store.

This expansion also coincided with the department store chain’s sustainable fashion

initiatives, which saw a couple of workshops and talks on the topic hosted in a few of its locations across the country. 

Similarly, its competitor Printemps, hosted a pop-up in collaboration with Parisian luxury secondhand player The Room from October 2024 to January 2025 that tapped into more sustainable consumption models to appease its more sustainability-conscious shoppers.

Fashion resale trend 2: Investment in new features to streamline the shopping experience

Resale platforms have started enhancing their propositions to stand out in the

market. These initiatives are helping to alleviate common challenges facing secondhand buying such as a lack of detailed product imagery, buyer and seller fees and time-consuming listing processes.

GlobalData asserts that one way resale platforms are strengthening their

appeal is through the removal of seller fees. This means sellers can maximise the return on the sale of their goods. It also encourages more sellers to use the platforms and strengthens the selection of products available to buy, which boosts the overall market. 

This has traditionally been the USP of Vinted alongside its lack of shipping costs for sellers, which has helped it to dominate the market in recent years. 

Its rival Depop waived its 10% seller fee for UK users in March 2024, before rolling this out to the US in July, alongside transferring the shipping cost to the buyer. 

In April 2024, after a successful pilot in Germany to introduce free selling, eBay UK also followed suit by removing seller fees for private sellers on clothing items.

AI is also being used to streamline the product listing process. In September 2024, Depop introduced a new description generation tool, using image recognition and generative AI technology to accelerate the listing process. 

It automatically populates information relating to colour, category, brand, and sub-category to reduce some of the effort involved in listing items and encourages more consumers to sell so there is more choice and variety on the platform. It also improves the consistency and accuracy of listing details, which ultimately benefits

buyers. 

This follows a suite of wider AI and machine-learning driven enhancements to the Depop experience over the past year, including predictive recommendations and pricing guidance. 

In August (2024) ThredUp also launched a range of AI-powered features, including an image search function and a style chat to help users find complete outfits based on specific requirements and occasions. The idea is to simplify the shopping process and allow shoppers to refine their search and find items with minimal effort. 

Vinted was the first resale player to launch its own logistics company, Vinted Go in 2022. It started in Paris with the service offering a pick-up drop-off (PUDO) solution with its own locker network. The proposition has allowed Vinted to bring its distribution in-house and rely less on third-party shipping companies to enhance the customer experience. 

Vinted Go now has 4,000 locations across France, Netherlands, and Belgium, with the platform considering rolling out the service across its European markets in future.

Fashion resale trend 3: Online marketplaces and luxury resale 

Online marketplaces are tapping into the resale market with the commerce arm of social media platform TikTok, TikTok Shop, entering into partnerships with luxury resale platforms to create a secondhand luxury fashion category. 

TikTok Shop is becoming the go-to destination for social shopping for Gen Z and

millennial shoppers so GlobalData asserts the marketplace’s entrance into resale will see it compete with well-established players such as Vinted and Vestiaire Collective.

These partnerships will also allow the luxury resale platforms to reach younger audiences, who are becoming big consumers of luxury fashion with the likes of Louis Vuitton gaining a loyal Gen Z following thanks to its campaigns on social media platforms such as TikTok.

Amazon Fashion Europe is also tapping into the resale space and partnered with London-based resale platform HEWI in February to give its customers the chance to buy pre-loved luxury items via its e-commerce website. 

The partnership features a digital store front on the Amazon platform for shoppers in the UK, Spain, Italy, and Germany and means HEWI can capitalise on Amazon’s digital capabilities, while the offer allows Amazon to compete with eBay, which has strengthened its preloved fashion category in recent years.

The Luxury resale market has proved more resilient despite the wider traditional luxury market slowdown as aspirational shoppers turn to the channel to secure more affordable prices.

In the nine months ending September 2024, US-based luxury resale platform The

RealReal recorded strong revenue growth of 14.3%. The platform’s success lies in its

subscription-based customer loyalty programme, called FirstLook. 

For a monthly fee of $12, shoppers get 24-hour early access to the 10,000+ new products that drop on the platform every day, while also being able to shop “secret sales”, exclusive product curations and receive a discount-based birthday perk. 

It means the platform can give the same exclusive experience as traditional luxury players, whilst also providing them with discounts on desirable designer names. 

Vinted also attributes its first ever full year of profit to its continued expansion in luxury fashion. It acquired designer second-hand specialist Rebelle in 2022 to enable Vinted to launch an “item verification service,” that allows its members to

trade designer and high-value fashion items with increased safety.