Who sells the second life of a garment: brands or their retail partners?

The second life of a garment is increasingly sold by the retailer, not the brand. Department stores and online platforms are adding pre-owned assortments, usually run with a resale specialist, and they source items from their own customers. For wholesale brands that means a choice: stay out and let partners and platforms set the terms, or treat resale as part of the key account relationship, with agreed standards, data and, in some cases, a share of the value.

How are retail partners getting into resale?

Several large retailers have moved from pop-ups to permanent resale offers. Bloomingdale's partnered with Rebag in August 2024, bringing more than 3,000 pre-owned luxury handbags, watches and jewellery items to its website and five stores; customers can also sell select items in those stores, where associates use Rebag's AI tool CLAIR to evaluate them and make offers. Selfridges runs its Reselfridges programme, which began in 2020, and has expanded a circular hub combining resale, repair and rental partners; the retailer targets 45 percent of transactions from circular products, practices and services by 2030.

In Europe, Zalando operates a pre-owned business in which it buys used items from customers, has them hand inspected and resells them alongside new fashion. In March 2026 it extended the model to kidswear in 14 markets, paying sellers with vouchers, and reported that up to 50 percent of adult pre-owned pieces sell within 24 hours, rising to 90 percent for premium brands. BCG and Vestiaire Collective note that flagship department stores such as Galeries Lafayette have embedded secondhand as permanent in-store fixtures, and that 55 percent of secondhand purchases occur on online multibrand resale platforms.

What resale models exist between brands and retail partners?

Read also

AI in resale and second-hand fashion: authentication, pricing and listing

What is at stake for wholesale brands?

• Brand presentation. Pre-owned items appear under the retailer's banner next to the brand's new season products. Condition standards and descriptions influence how the brand is perceived.
• Price architecture. A heavily discounted second-hand item on the same floor or page as full price stock can change customers' price expectations. Affordability, cited by nearly 80 percent of secondhand buyers in the BCG and Vestiaire Collective study, is the main reason people buy pre-owned.
• Authentication. Counterfeits in a partner's resale offer damage the brand as well as the retailer.
• Customer relationship. Trade-in credit at a retailer is spent at that retailer, not necessarily with the brand.
• Data. Resale transactions show which styles hold value and how products age, information the brand rarely receives.

There is also the question of who captures the value. When a retailer and its resale specialist buy a customer's used item and resell it, the margin, the customer contact and the trade-in credit stay with the retailer. The brand bears the reputational risk of how its products are presented, but sees none of the revenue and usually none of the data. That asymmetry is the main reason to put resale on the agenda of key account meetings rather than leaving it to the retailer's sustainability team.

Which terms should brands discuss with key accounts?

Resale is rarely covered in wholesale agreements written before the recent growth of retailer pre-owned offers. Brands that want a say can address it in annual negotiations or in a separate side letter. Typical topics are:

1. Use of brand assets. Whether the partner may use the brand's logos, original imagery and product descriptions in pre-owned listings.
2. Authentication standards. Which checks the partner or its resale specialist applies, and how suspected counterfeits are reported to the brand.
3. Presentation rules. Separate labelling of pre-owned items, condition grading definitions and placement relative to current season stock.
4. Data sharing. Periodic reports on volumes, prices and sell-through of the brand's pre-owned items.
5. Brand supplied stock. Conditions under which the brand delivers graded returns or trade-in stock to the partner's pre-owned assortment.
6. Collection services. Whether partner stores act as take-back points for the brand's programme, and how that is compensated.

Competition law sets limits. Brands generally cannot dictate resale prices to independent retailers, so pricing discussions should focus on presentation and recommendations rather than fixed prices; legal advice is advisable before contract changes.

How does product data enable partner resale?

Retailers and their resale specialists spend effort identifying items, finding original details and writing descriptions. A brand that provides a product data feed (style, colour, composition, original imagery and identifiers) can make its products easier and faster to resell, which supports higher realised prices. BCG and Vestiaire Collective report that the use of digital product IDs in the Chloé and Vestiaire Collective partnership reduced resale time by over 60 percent. As the EU Digital Product Passport for textiles approaches, the same item level data will become part of the normal exchange between brands and retail partners.

Read also

Is there a DPP business case beyond compliance? Resale, service and customer data

Should wholesale brands sell through partners or build their own resale?

For most wholesale driven brands, the two are complements. An own programme gives control and direct customer contact, but needs volume and operations. Partner resale reaches customers where they already shop and lets the retailer carry processing costs, but gives the brand less influence. A pragmatic path is to set minimum standards and data agreements with the key accounts that already sell pre-owned, test supplying graded stock to one partner, and decide on an own programme only once the economics of second-hand for the brand's own products are known.