Resale might not be at the center of the fashion conversation like it once was, but the relative lack of industry attention has not led to a slowing in momentum.
For many, secondhand is no longer the second option and, as younger shoppers start off with the notion of buying and selling their wardrobe, the sector’s base will only get stronger.
That’s the read from ThredUp co-founder and chief executive officer James Reinhart, who spoke to WWD before the company’s closely watched 2026 Resale Report was released Thursday.
Drawing on research from analytics firm GlobalData, ThredUp found that the global secondhand apparel market grew by 13 percent last year, outpacing the market for new apparel, where sales were nearly flat for the year.
Between 2025 and 2030, the global secondhand market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of about 9 percent.
That has the sector growing two-times faster than the overall apparel market and hitting $393 billion by 2030.
In the U.S., resale is growing four times faster than retail overall, taking share from fashion’s traditional sellers and set to hit $78.8 billion by 2030, according to the report.
“Resale is proving its durability,” Reinhart said. “What we’ve been talking about for a number of years is that you would see these generations of young people, in particular, adopting resale at higher rates and that you would see continued penetration and wallet share gains by resale.
“You’re starting to see that,” he said. “It’s playing out a lot the way we thought. And not all of it is obvious to the investor community or others. But I think if you look under the hood, there’s a lot of growth across a bunch of these categories, across a bunch of these companies.”
ThredUp was the fastest growing fashion stock last year, shooting up 354.7 percent to $6.32 a share.
But it’s been a rollercoaster. Shares of the company up 3.4 percent to $3.39 on Wednesday and have traded as high as $12.28 over the past year.
Reinhart said the trends are lining up for the resale believers.
“Everybody wants everything to happen right away and people forget that TJ Maxx was started in the early ‘80s,” he said, referring to one of TJX Cos.’ powerhouse offprice brands. “And it didn’t actually really take off until the financial crisis in ‘08. If you actually go and look at the stock chart, it’s pretty interesting. Basically, it’s nothing. There’s no movement for 25 years and then it’s a rocket ship and it sort of parallels the adoption curve as consumers felt more stretched in the financial crisis.”
And shoppers have continued to evolve as a new generation comes to the fore.
“We call them resale natives,” Reinhart said. “They grew up shopping secondhand. And so the mindset of how they will consume in the future — people generally underestimate, but it’s not wild to believe as this group has more and more purchasing power 10, 15, 20 years from now, that 80 percent of their closet isn’t secondhand.
“Once people do it and kind of do it once, it’s kind of like breaking the seal. I think you’ve got to break the inertia of it. Then you really start to see momentum. It’s pretty rare that you have somebody who is a seller or supplier in the resell market who a year later is not still doing it.”
The report also found:
- It’s the supply of secondhand goods, not consumer demand, that is resale’s primary constraint.
- The sector is “shifting from acquisition to competition” and will be shaped in the years ahead by not just new shoppers, but a competition for wallet share.
- Discovery is moving off of resale’s own platforms with nearly half of action happening across social feeds, creatives and outside digital channels.
- AI is reducing friction across the resale experience, making both buying and selling more efficient and scaleable.
