Sustainable Retail: Collaborative initiatives fuelling resale
Welcome to the latest sustainability column that takes a look at what retailing is doing to address the issues in its industry. Much of the ongoing focus will be on fashion but not exclusively.
This month’s column considers the collaborative activity, including eBay’s ongoing sponsorship of Love Island, which is helping raise awareness and drive growth in the fashion resale market.
We are very pleased to bring this series of columns to you with the much appreciated support of our sponsor Prolog Fulfilment.
Who can believe it is five years since eBay took over the headline sponsorship of Love Island from the previous sponsors including I Saw It First, Boohoo and Missguided who all inhabited the world of fast fashion. This was a surprising move at the time but it has since proven to be rather timely because whereas these online fashion retailers have suffered a serious decline in fortunes (and total collapse in some cases) the resale market for fashion continues with its upward trajectory of volumes.
Admittedly its growth comes from a relatively low base but let’s consider that eBay has found that 65% of Gen Z now go out of their way to buy, or try to buy, pre-loved where possible. This represents an 18% increase on the figures before eBay formed its partnership with Love Island. This suggests a market that is only going in one direction.
The appetite for pre-loved has seen searches for ‘Love Island pre-loved’ increase by over 600% on eBay’s UK site while the programme aired. Since this is the first year of sponsorship that eBay has offered both free buying and selling of pre-loved items on its marketplace there is greater incentives for people to get involved and the potential for greater volumes.
While this is great news for driving the market there is still much to be done, according to Jemma Tadd, head of fashion at eBay UK, who says: “We’ve seen attitudes shift in favour of pre-loved through each season of Love Island but there is more work to be done as shoppers still look to fast fashion for the latest trends. Pre-loved fashion can be timeless, luxurious, and the ultimate style statement – we’ve seen in the Villa Islanders re-wearing fabulous pre-loved fits time and time again.”
Further evidence of the embrace of pre-loved in the mainstream market is the launch by TikTok of a pre-owned luxury category. The company’s TikTok Shop is working with a variety of partners in the pre-loved eco-system through which shoppers can purchase clothing without having to leave the TikTok platform.
With #prelovedfashion already generating over 62,000 creations on TikTok the launch of a pre-loved fashion category makes sense and will help make such products much more accessible to the massive audience on TikTok. It has initially linked up with major players including @LuxeCollective, @hardlyeverwornittts and @Sign_ofthetimes who have each already enjoyed significant success on the platform.
Jan Wilk, head of operations at TikTok Shop UK, is equally excited about the opportunities for resale as the senior team at eBay UK: “This announcement is an exciting first step in the world of pre-owned fashion for TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop is already a leader when it comes to discovery-based commerce and with a vibrant fashion community thriving on TikTok, this provides a unique opportunity for retailers to reach new audiences and customers with an inspiring and accessible way to embrace luxury fashion.”
This activity follows the news earlier in the year that Amazon Europe’s Luxury Stores category is collaborating with luxury resale platform, Hardly Ever Worn It, offering an assortment of pre-owned items from coveted luxury brands. This involved Hardly Ever Worn It launching a storefront on the site offering a curated assortment of pre-owned luxury styles to Amazon Fashion in Europe for the first time.
These moves all highlight the many collaborative efforts that are currently taking place in the retail market to offer resale items to an ever wider audience, giving customers new ways to shop that meets their growing appetite for pre-loved goods.
Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider
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