The Resale Boom, Explained: How Secondhand Became Fashion’s Fastest-Growing Market

A decade ago, buying secondhand clothing was largely associated with charity shops and bargain hunting. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing parts of the fashion industry. Pre-owned designer handbags sell for thousands of dollars on specialist platforms, millions of people across Europe sell their clothes through apps, and some of the world’s biggest luxury houses now run their own resale programmes.

This report explains how big the secondhand market has become, why consumers are buying pre-owned, how the leading platforms are performing, how luxury brands have responded, and the legal and practical questions the market now faces. It draws on research from ThredUp, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Vestiaire Collective, McKinsey, Bain & Company, and company results.

The key numbers

• About $393 billion: the size of the global secondhand apparel market in ThredUp’s 2026 Resale Report, about 10% of total apparel spending.
• About 10% a year: the growth rate of the secondhand fashion and luxury market, roughly three times faster than new goods, according to BCG and Vestiaire Collective.
• Up to $360 billion: BCG’s forecast for the secondhand fashion and luxury market by 2030.
• $78.8 billion: the forecast size of the US secondhand apparel market by 2030.
• About 80%: the share of secondhand shoppers in BCG’s survey who named affordability as a top reason to buy.
• Up to 59%: the share of established luxury clients who regularly buy pre-owned, according to McKinsey and The Business of Fashion.
• €10.8 billion and $642 million: Vinted’s 2025 gross sales and The RealReal’s third-quarter 2026 gross sales.

Part 1: How big is the secondhand market?

Estimates of the market’s size vary depending on what is counted, but every major study shows it growing faster than the market for new clothes.

ThredUp, the US online resale company, publishes an annual Resale Report with retail analytics firm GlobalData. Its 2026 report, published in April 2026, put the global secondhand apparel market at about $393 billion, or roughly 10% of total apparel spending, and projected that it would grow about twice as fast as overall apparel retail over the next five years, according to the company’s announcement. ThredUp forecast that the US secondhand market will reach $78.8 billion by 2030, and said that in 2025 the US market grew nearly four times faster than the wider clothing retail market.

A report published in October 2025 by BCG and Vestiaire Collective, the Paris-based luxury resale platform, estimated that the secondhand fashion and luxury market is growing about 10% a year, roughly three times faster than the market for new goods, and could reach as much as $360 billion by 2030, according to BCG.

McKinsey and The Business of Fashion reached a similar conclusion in their State of Fashion 2026 report, forecasting that resale will grow up to three times faster than the primary luxury market through 2027. In China, Bain estimates the secondhand luxury market grew 15% to 20% in 2025, although it remains less than 10% of the size of the market for new luxury goods.

Part 2: Why shoppers are buying secondhand

1. Price

Affordability is the main driver. In BCG and Vestiaire Collective’s survey of 7,800 Vestiaire users, about 80% named affordability as one of their top reasons for buying secondhand. In the US, the figure was 87%, about 11 points higher than in Europe.

The rise in luxury prices since 2019 has widened the gap between new and pre-owned. Average prices of European personal luxury goods rose about 52% between 2019 and 2024, according to HSBC, and some of the most famous handbags nearly doubled in price. Wall Street Journal columnist Carol Ryan noted that a lightly used Prada Galleria bag listed on The RealReal for about $1,500 made the new version, at roughly three times the price, hard to justify, according to The Fashion Law. Read our report on why luxury got so expensive.

Bain found that aspirational luxury shoppers, those priced out of new goods, are trading down, and that secondhand has become their gateway into luxury.

2. Variety and the thrill of the hunt

Price is not the only reason. In BCG’s survey, about 55% of buyers strongly agreed that the variety and uniqueness of secondhand items motivated them, and nearly half said they enjoyed searching and interacting with other buyers and sellers. McKinsey and The Business of Fashion found that nearly half of US luxury clients who buy pre-owned do so for the thrill of the hunt as much as for the savings.

3. Sustainability

About 40% of BCG’s respondents strongly agreed that sustainability was a key reason for buying secondhand. Extending the life of clothing reduces the need to produce new items, which is one reason resale has become central to the fashion industry’s sustainability discussions.

4. Even wealthy clients are buying pre-owned

Secondhand is no longer only for budget shoppers. In a 2026 survey of more than 2,000 luxury clients in the US and China, McKinsey and The Business of Fashion found that up to 59% of established luxury clients regularly buy pre-owned. Some described poor experiences in luxury stores, such as pushy selling and long queues, as one reason they turned to online and resale channels.

Part 3: Why people sell

Resale depends on people selling as well as buying. In BCG’s survey, the most common reason for selling was clearing out a wardrobe, cited by 66% of sellers. Another 44% sold to fund future secondhand purchases, 41% to earn money, and 18% to help pay for new items. American respondents were nearly four times as likely as others to treat reselling as a part-time or full-time job.

This creates what platforms call a circular wardrobe: consumers buy, wear and resell, using the proceeds to buy again. BCG found that secondhand items made up 28% of respondents’ wardrobes, 30% of their clothing and 40% of their handbags.

Part 4: Generation Z and social media

Young consumers are driving much of the growth. In BCG’s survey, secondhand items made up as much as 32% of Gen Z respondents’ wardrobes and 45% of their handbags globally, rising to 66% of handbags among Gen Z respondents in the US. Eight in ten Gen Z respondents saw resale as a way to discover new brands, compared with an average of 66% across all ages.

ThredUp forecasts that Gen Z and millennials will account for 71% of the secondhand market’s growth through 2030, most of it from people new to buying secondhand. It also found that nearly half of shoppers now discover secondhand items through social media, creators and influencers rather than through traditional search.

Part 5: The platforms

The RealReal

The RealReal, a US platform that sells authenticated luxury goods on consignment, has returned to strong growth. In the third quarter of 2026, its gross merchandise value, the total value of goods sold, rose 23% to $642 million, and revenue rose 19% to $206 million, according to FashionUnited. Active buyers over the previous 12 months rose 13% to about 1.15 million, and the average order value rose 8% to $629.

The company, which had a long history of losses, reported net income of $16 million in the quarter, compared with a $54 million loss a year earlier, although the figure included a $21.2 million non-cash gain. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $17 million. Chief executive Rati Levesque said the quarter set records for gross sales, revenue and orders. The RealReal raised its full-year guidance and now expects 2026 gross merchandise value of $2.59 billion to $2.60 billion and revenue of $806 million to $810 million.

Vinted

Vinted, the Lithuanian-founded app where people sell their own clothes and other items to one another, has become Europe’s largest secondhand fashion platform. In 2025, gross business volume on the platform rose 47% to €10.8 billion, and revenue rose 38% to €1.1 billion, according to FashionUnited.

Net profit fell 19% to €62 million because of heavy investment in Germany, new product categories such as sporting goods and collectibles, logistics and payments. Vinted now has more than 500,000 parcel pick-up and drop-off points and runs its own delivery service, Vinted Go, in several European countries.

ThredUp and Vestiaire Collective

ThredUp, which focuses on mid-priced clothing, says it has processed more than 200 million items from 60,000 brands, and offers “resale-as-a-service” technology that lets brands run their own secondhand shops. Vestiaire Collective, which specialises in pre-owned designer fashion, partners with luxury brands on resale programmes and co-authored the BCG research cited in this report.

Part 6: Luxury brands join in

For years, many luxury brands kept their distance from resale, worried that it would undercut sales of new products or damage their image. That has changed. According to BCG, many brands now see resale as an important way to attract new customers.

Examples compiled by The Fashion Law include:

• Gucci: collaborated with The RealReal in 2020, later launched its Vault platform for refurbished and customised vintage pieces, and partnered with Vestiaire Collective on a pre-owned bag programme with pre-owned offerings in 26 European stores.
• Rolex: launched a certified pre-owned programme for inspected and refurbished watches sold through its authorised dealers.
• Chloé: introduced digital IDs for its products, allowing their history to be traced and enabling instant resale through Vestiaire Collective.
• Oscar de la Renta: brought resale in-house with Encore, a platform for authenticated, reconditioned pre-owned pieces.
• Balenciaga, Valentino and Jean Paul Gaultier: have also tested pre-owned initiatives.

Brands that run their own resale programmes can guarantee authenticity, keep control over how their products are presented and priced, collect data on customers, and bring in younger shoppers who may later buy new. Accessible brands have also joined in: Coach, for example, runs a programme that buys back and resells its own bags, as reported by Scripps News.

Part 7: The legal fights

Not every brand has welcomed independent resellers. Chanel has been the most active in the courts.

In March 2018, Chanel sued What Goes Around Comes Around (WGACA), a New York vintage luxury reseller, alleging that it used Chanel’s trademarks to suggest an affiliation with the brand and sold counterfeit or altered Chanel goods. WGACA argued that its use of the marks was fair and that it was entitled to resell genuine goods it had bought.

On February 6, 2024, a jury found in Chanel’s favour on all four claims, found the infringement was wilful and awarded $4 million in statutory damages, according to a timeline compiled by The Fashion Law. In February 2025, the court issued a permanent injunction limiting how WGACA could use Chanel’s trademarks. On November 3, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the $4 million damages award, while sending a separate costs award back to the lower court.

Chanel has brought similar trademark claims against The RealReal, and settled a case with sneaker reseller Crepslocker. Nike has sued StockX, alleging the sale of counterfeit sneakers and disputing NFTs linked to its products. Legal commentators say the WGACA case could help clarify how resellers can refer to brands and how they should describe the authenticity of what they sell.

Part 8: Authentication and digital passports

Trust is the biggest challenge in luxury resale. Buyers need to know that a pre-owned handbag or watch is genuine, and platforms spend heavily on expert authentication.

Digital product passports, which store a product’s origin and history and are often accessed through a tag or QR code, are one proposed solution. The European Union plans to require them for many products under its sustainability rules. In BCG’s survey, 70% of buyers and 67% of sellers said they valued digital passports for authentication. Awareness remains low: 65% of respondents had never heard of them, and another 15% knew the term without understanding it.

Part 9: What resale prices reveal

The secondary market has also become a real-time measure of a brand’s desirability.

• Hermès: Birkin and Kelly bags hold their value unusually well and consistently outperform rivals at auction, according to Hermès executive Guillaume de Seynes. Read our report on Hermès.
• Swiss watches: secondary-market prices for high-end Swiss watches kept falling in 2024, according to Bain, contributing to weaker demand for new watches in China.
• Labubu: resale prices for many models of Pop Mart’s collectible toy fell by more than half in 2026 as production increased, and analysts linked falling resale values to weaker demand for new releases. Read our Labubu explainer.

Part 10: The challenges

Resale has grown quickly, but the business is not easy. Authenticating, photographing, storing and shipping individual items is expensive, and many resale companies have struggled to make a profit. The RealReal only recently returned to profitability, and Vinted’s profits fell in 2025 as it invested in expansion. Counterfeits remain a constant risk, and brand lawsuits have raised the legal stakes for resellers.

Resale also depends on a steady supply of new goods entering the market. If luxury brands sell fewer new products, fewer items will eventually be available to resell.

What comes next

The main forecasters expect resale to keep growing faster than the market for new clothes and luxury goods for the rest of the decade, driven by price-conscious consumers, younger shoppers, social media discovery and brands’ own programmes. ThredUp says artificial intelligence is already improving search, pricing and authentication.

For luxury brands, the question is no longer whether resale will matter, but how much of it they can control. As BCG and McKinsey both note, resale is now an important entry point for new customers, especially younger ones.

Summary

• The secondhand fashion market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and is growing two to three times faster than the market for new goods.
• Affordability is the main reason shoppers buy secondhand, followed by variety, the enjoyment of the search and sustainability.
• Gen Z and millennials are expected to drive most of the growth, often discovering items through social media.
• The RealReal and Vinted reported record results, but resale remains a difficult business to run profitably.
• Luxury brands from Gucci to Rolex now run their own resale programmes, while Chanel has fought independent resellers in court.
• Authentication and digital product passports will shape how much shoppers trust the market.

---

Sources: ThredUp 2026 Resale Report announcement; BCG and Vestiaire Collective; McKinsey & BoF, The State of Fashion 2026; McKinsey & BoF, Face to Face With Luxury Clients; Bain & Company; Bain, China 2025; FashionUnited, The RealReal; FashionUnited, Vinted; The Fashion Law, brand resale; The Fashion Law, Chanel v. WGACA; The Fashion Law, pricing; Scripps News.