2021 JULY
SUSTAINABLE FASHION REPORT
UNITED STATES
By Andrew Sia
This is the first of a series of reports which we will report on the developed countries as it is focusing on the resell of fashion clothing. Without question that it is a growing market and it will increase its presence in the consumer’s wardrobe.
Thrift shops have been known for their vintage clothing and that cater to a special clientele but this more modern day approach, when we are talking about the millennials and the Generation Z, they are turning it into a lifestyle. This type of business will grow in the digital world and through the social media it can boost its presence and also the importance.
For the first part, we would still dedicate to the international marketplace. This shows the most popular marketplace worldwide ranked by gross merchandise value. Taobao, from China, was ranked number one at the period. But the ranking from the developed country should count, which in this case is Amazon and eBay, the other three are all from the Chinese e-commerce, namely, Taobao, Tmall and JD.com.
This shows the average resale prices of YEEZY sneakers worldwide as of 2019 by brand names. You can find some of the prices are really amazing. For instance, a pair of Nike Air Yeezy 2 “Red October” sneakers had an average resale price of $6,075 worldwide. This is a special market and a market for speculation created by the brands. It is not for the normal market, unless you are inside it.
As of 2019, 33% of the millennials stated that they like to shop secondhand. E-commerce is overtaking the thrift stores.
This shows the share of women by age who bought secondhand apparel, footwear, or accessories worldwide as of 2020. About 40% of the Gen Z admitted that they had purchased secondhand items.
Now we enter into the situation in the United States. Used merchandise store sales in the US from 1992 to 2019, and used merchandise store sales came to about $18.3 billion. Almost all the sales were done through the thrift stores until the e-commerce comes along in a much later day.
During a survey in January 2020, it was found that eBay was the most popular marketplace with a total score of 6.53 on a 10-point scale. The result were based on profitability, customer service, communication and ease of use. We have to know that for online marketplace provide smaller businesses and micro-platform, unlike those brands and their online platform.
As of the fourth quarter of 2018, the most visited online market place in the US was Amazon.
Etsy, hosted more than 2.5 million sellers selling goods through their ecosystem. Some of the best-selling categories were hand-made kids clothing, jewelry, crafting materials and home decor.
This shows the e-commerce share of total retail revenue accounted for 62.7% of retail revenues. Digital sales accounted for 62.7% of retail revenues in the books, music and video segment.
As of February 2020, only 5% of the US online users have ever used Poshmark—an online marketplace. Poshmark is a secondhand marketplace where members in the US join to buy and sell new and used clothing, shoes and accessories.
This was the survey conducted in the US and 26% answered “clothing”. But majority still don’t buy anything secondhand.
The survey showed 50% listed “lower price” as the reason for buying used-clothing online. And only 9% listed “style” as a reason. But 17% listed it was “more sustainable” as the reason.
In 2019, 20% of the average consumers’ closet was made up of purchases from mid-priced specialty retailers. We can see the tendency of the building up of the resale/secondhand clothing in the closet.
Closing comment
This report is purely about the consumer’s behavior of the purchase of secondhand apparel. It has nothing to do with the manufacturing process of the apparel which would be more fundamental. There are reasons for buying, but the most important is the price and the amount the consumer can spend.
But I am very skeptical when we are talking about the secondhand apparel if it is from the fast fashion as the price to start with is already very low. I doubt if there can be any resell value. And because of the low price, the materials and the workmanship are reflecting on the merchandise already.
If we are really talking about changing the consumer’s behavior, the first thing is to spend a higher price for a better merchandise that we can keep for a longer time, if we really want to resell it, we can sell it anytime to fetch a better price.
For resell, we saw RealReal who went public in 2019 and Poshmark who went public in this January. It was already mentioned by Boston Consulting Group that this global resell market in worth as much as $40 billion and it was predicted that this market would expand at a compound annual growth between 15% to 20% over the next five years.
Then there is this fashion subscription service that provide a rental arrange of certain numbers of garments for a monthly fee. It is also known as the fashion subscription service and it is a way to reduce product waste. We reported a case in our April issue where we mentioned about J. Front Retailing, who is also a major shareholder of Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores, and it is providing fashion rental service with 50 domestic and internationally known brands that are popular in the Japanese department stores.
The supply of the apparel are coming from the overstocked situation where every year so many clothing items are brought into the market, and it is found that nearly half of them are unsold. It is turning this excess situation into a viable business.
In the US, we have Rent the Runway who started in the US in 2009 as an online rental service for clothing and accessories for the special occasions.
Lastly we want to add a company known as Trvl Porter and you can refer to their website as the following. We took the picture from their website.
