Resale is reshaping digital fashion retail

For a long time, “second-hand” sat in a different mental box to “retail”. It was charity shops, car-boot bargains and the occasional vintage find. Today, it’s one of the most dynamic parts of fashion commerce – and it’s happening largely online, with a customer experience that increasingly feels as slick as buying new.
The headlines make the point clearly. Vinted is now the third-largest fashion retailer in the UK by customer numbers, behind Primark and Next – and in a move that signals how strategically important the space has become, eBay has agreed to acquire Depop from Etsy for around $1.2bn, bringing a distinctly Gen Z resale community into eBay’s orbit. The move underlines that scale players believe resale has headroom to grow beyond the ~€5bn of market value spent on online second-hand fashion today in the UK.