Used Clothing Sales Soar as Price-Conscious Consumers Lead the Way, Targeting 10% Market Share This Year
In 2023, there was a shift towards affordability, from pricey homes to camper vans, premium retailers to dollar stores, and from new to used clothing. Though inflation is easing, price tags are still top-of-mind. US secondhand apparel sales rose 11% to $43B last year, nearly doubling since 2018, reports ThredUp.
- Secondhand sales in the US outpaced the broader apparel market’s growth by sevenfold last year, but despite this, the industry still struggles to turn a profit.
- ThredUp posted a $71M loss on $322M revenue in 2023, while competitor Poshmark was acquired in 2022 for one-sixth of its initial public offering valuation.
Expensive fashion: An “oversupply of clothes,” as noted by The Or Foundation’s Co-Founder Liz Ricketts, diminishes both “the perceived value, and the real value, of everything.” Achieving profitability demands substantial investments in machinery to offset labor and fulfillment costs involved in inventory processing. It’s become such a problem that one Swiss charity is finding it “increasingly expensive” to run their organization and cover the cost of incinerating ~70% of donated clothing.
