How big fashion took over the second hand market

Thrifting is booming. But as giants like H&M, Zara and Lululemon are jumping onto the trend and cashing in, is it becoming a net negative?

#PlanetA #secondhand #thrift

Credits:
Reporter: Katharina Schantz
Camera: Henning Goll, Neven Hillebrands
Video Editor: Neven Hillebrands
Supervising Editors: Adam Baheej Adada, Michael Trobridge
Fact Check: Aitziber Romero Bengoetxea
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:53 The glow-up
02:52 Inside the resale industry
04:42 The digital resale boom
06:43 How brands use secondhand to sell more
09:41 How much secondhand is too much?
11:18 What now?

Read more:
Second-hand clothing markets and a just circular economy?https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652623002974

The Environmental Impacts of Second-Hand Textile Fashion and the Influence of Consumer Choices
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383269526_Do_We_Save_the_Environment_by_Buying_Second-Hand_Clothes_The_Environmental_Impacts_of_Second-Hand_Textile_Fashion_and_the_Influence_of_Consumer_Choices

The Waste and Resources Action Program: Textiles 2030 – Annual Progress Report 2023/2024
https://www.wrap.ngo/sites/default/files/2024-11/textiles-2030-annual-progress-report-23-24.pdf

Circular Business Models in the Fashion industry
https://cfda.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2.-Report-Circular-Business-Models.pdf

ThredUp: Resale Report 2025
https://cf-assets-tup.thredup.com/resale_report/2025/ThredUp_Resale_Report_2025.pdf

We’re destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. We’ll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

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All I wanted to do was to get a black shirt guilt-free, and what better place to do that than Berlin, I thought. “I’m wearing these shorts that are second hand and this head scarf.” “Pretty well everything. The Adidas were from a flea market in Berlin.” But it turned out to be really complicated. Welcome to the new world of secondhand. It’s everywhere – from the streets of Berlin to glamorous Netflix shows. “How much can I get for this?” “I think it’s at least 3,000 euros.” “eBay sorted me out with a nice little bomber jacket.” “This outfit is pre-loved from eBay.” “Looking good, feeling fresh.” Resale companies Oxfam and Vinted even hosted a catwalk show at London Fashion Week 2024. The promise: high style, low prices… and less of a burden for the planet. But is that actually what’s happening? I figured there’s only one way to find out. So, I want to get a black T-shirt. Nothing fancy, just 100% cotton because I want to wear it in summer. Obviously, there’s H&M, Primark and Zara around that want to sell their new products. But I don’t want to get it new. Not just because I’m on a budget, but also because I don’t want to add to the mess. So, I figured: Berlin is full of secondhand stores. Why not try to thrift that black shirt? Should be easy, right? Until recently, small charity shops were often the easiest way to do that. This may be what comes to mind when you hear “secondhand”: chaotic, stuffy thrift shops that take ages to browse and have a questionable reputation. “Excuse me.” “Yes?” “Do you know if anyone died in this?” For decades, the market was run by non-profits like Oxfam or Goodwill. It was often associated with low social status and poverty. I’ll never forget the look that my classmate gave me when she discovered the 50 cent tag on a shirt that my mum had bought secondhand. But something seems to have changed. To find out what, I got help from a market analyst. “Secondhand isn’t about low-income consumers anymore. It isn’t about the lowest possible price, it’s actually attracting people from across the income spectrum.” Neil Saunders has been analyzing the secondhand market since 2016. “It’s now a sector where people go for fun, they go to discover. And actually a lot of the younger consumers, Gen Z and Millennials have driven some of these new reasons for shopping.” So, what are these reasons? I want to hear it from them. “It’s cheaper and it’s more fun stuff and it feels more rewarding.” “It’s almost like, I think it’s the, the thrill of the find.” “My main reason is… uniqueness.” “You find more unique pieces and then like the added bonus of it being environmentally friendly.” “Fast fashion is just… it’s not it.” I can resonate with all of that. So let’s start the hunt. To get my T-shirt, I came to this vintage shop – which didn’t look like I expected it to. It’s very industrial chic in here. You can really tell that secondhand has had a glow up. That’s so much style! Makes me feel pretty basic. Clara Metzger manages the shop. She told me she’s wearing vintage from head to toe. “Everything we wear tells a story. That’s just beautiful. Whenever I’m on holiday in another country, I really love going shopping. And then I imagine that this blouse once belonged to an Italian granny.” But not every item tells that kind of a story. Clara unpacks 75kg worth of clothing every day. But she can’t resell all of it, some has to go. “This here won’t go on the shelf. I weed out that kind of thing because it’s pure polyester. It has increased since Primark and Shein entered the market. I pick this stuff up, and feel that it’s produced for the waste bin.” That’s not only a problem for Clara. Liz Ricketts set up a foundation which picks up 20 tons of textile waste along Ghana’s shores each week. “We cannot solve this fashion waste crisis if we do not get serious about the root cause, which is overproduction.” Studies say 10-30% of all clothes produced are never sold or worn. Although we’re getting better at things like recycling, as we covered here, it’s not enough, because we keep making more stuff. When new collections drop every other week, it kind of defeats the point. Getting and processing the fibres we need for our clothes creates a huge amount of pollution – anywhere from 2-10% of all greenhouse gases people produce. More than what comes from all the planes flying and ships sailing around the world. But there is a silver lining: By 2030, we could lower those emissions by 16% – simply by reselling and repairing what we already have in our closet. Luckily, more and more people are interested in resale. Clara’s shop opened in 2018. Now, there are 12 more from the same brand across Germany. And it’s not just them – the entire industry is growing. “Back in 2016, we expected it to be successful, but I don’t think we expected it to grow quite as strongly as it has done, especially over the past few years.” It’s happening all around Asia, Europe and North America. Neil’s company found that in 2024, the global secondhand market was worth 227 billion U. S. dollars. “It’s slightly lower than Apple’s product sales. But it’s kind of in the same ballpark. So it’s, you know, it’s a really big number.” By now, secondhand is growing two to three times faster than the firsthand apparel market. One sector is moving particularly fast: online. In 2024, online transactions made up 88% of money spent in US resale. I did end up finding a black tee in the store. Ooh, this one’s funky. But it was a little more than I wanted to spend. So, I’m thinking: let’s take the hunt digital. Online, there are a gazillion offers for pre-loved black tees. I can go to a platform like eBay or Vinted, where I can get it directly from another customer. Or I can look on Sellpy or ThredUp for the US, which are companies that buy it from someone else, and resell it all themselves, taking care of sorting, listing, and shipping. And by now, some very familiar faces have entered the chat. “Retailers really wanted to get in on the act. They wanted a piece of this growth.” Lululemon, Zara, TheNorthFace… even Shein has their own resale platform. And Sellpy which sounds independent is majority-owned by H&M. And they’re making me feel just as at home as Clara did in the vintage store. This feels exactly like regular online shopping, I can click through different colors and sizes – depending on what’s available. Many even let me know how much I’ve saved – I’d pay about half the original price for this shirt. And they’re bringing good tidings, too. Sellpy even gives me the stats on how many emissions and water I’d save if I grab this shirt instead of a new one. I can “get the good feeling of keeping gear going”… and contribute to “a better world to explore”. Makes me feel like a hero. For shopping? But here’s the catch: Some of these resale programs are quite bluntly linked to the brand’s core business model: new apparel. So, I’m on Zalando pre-owned, so all of their secondhand stock, and boom there’s a sponsored post for new trainers. Not secondhand, just slid into the feed. And once I click on it, the recommendations below are also all new stock. Sneaky! When I asked them about this, Zalando said they want to create a seamless shopping experience, and that “over 40% of pre-owned customer orders combine items with new fashion.” At Lululemon, TheNorthFace and more, I can even trade in my own stuff, given that it’s their product. In exchange, I get in-store credit: 5$ for a shirt, 25$ for a jacket. But here’s the trick: I can only use it to buy new apparel. Not for another pre-owned item. So, that simply fuels their firsthand business. And as I’m clicking further through the pages to find my black shirt, I’m noticing sales techniques that feel a little too familiar. At Zalando Renewed, I get a free delivery and free returns if I shop for more than 30 euros. And Sellpy tells me it’s my “last chance” to get this summer dress. “Consumers think that if they don’t buy it now, they’re gonna regret it tomorrow.” Sascha Raithel studies these sales mechanisms for Free University Berlin. “This feeling can be very strong and this urgency makes consumers following their impulse to actually buy this offer.” And there are more mechanisms aimed at increasing my basket size. I found this AI-assisted style chat. And if I put in “I want a basic black tee” it turns my prompt into a whole outfit. Sellpy’s Instagram story – here’s an influencer in a stripey shirt, and right after, shopping suggestions for her entire look so I can look exactly like her. And the influencers come with discount codes right away. “By definition you have to buy more because you have to buy the whole style, right? So that everything fits together. And this way you create the need among the consumers: ‘Oh, I need to buy more to really fit this ideal picture of I’m a stylish person’.” We asked these companies about this approach to resale. Sellpy replied, saying that they “understand the concern that these incentives could mimic patterns of overconsumption. However, the core difference lies in what’s being consumed. Each item sold through Sellpy is already in circulation.” So, the question is: Can I actually overconsume secondhand? To find out, I went down a rabbit hole – but bear with me. This study calculates the environmental impacts of our clothing. And spoiler: what it really comes down to is not whether you buy new or second-hand – it’s how much you actually wear it. Let’s take three typical shoppers who just bought a shirt. Billie holds on to it for 80 wears, and Robin wears it an average of 40 times. Kim only wears it 10 times before tossing it, so she’ll need to buy way more shirts than Billie. These bars represent the emissions from each shopper buying a new shirt. If they shopped it secondhand, the bars would shrink to this. But they wouldn’t go to zero. The researchers found that the environmental cost of producing a shirt stays with it throughout its entire life, even if its sold on to someone else. That means that buying a secondhand T-shirt but only wearing it a couple of times before chucking it out can actually be worse for the environment than getting a new one and wearing it often. In other words: Secondhand shopping isn’t a free pass to overconsume. And this is the data for a dress. The emissions are much bigger here because a) it’s heavy and needs more material. And b) it’s worn on fewer occasions than the shirt. So, for a dress, it’s more important to buy it secondhand and prolong its life. Then there’s the question of whether getting it secondhand is actually replacing something you would have bought brand new. A British NGO found that out of every five items bought secondhand in the UK, only three of them are replacing new purchases. The other two essentially go on top. “There’s a lot of ways to consume anything that’s cheap in a very unconscious way, and that doesn’t necessarily fundamentally change our behaviors.” So, is secondhand shopping still good for the planet? Honestly, it’s complicated. It can definitely help when it replaces a new item, and its even better when that is used a lot. But there’s still a lot we don’t know. Whether resale actually stops retailers from producing more is a different side of the story, experts tell me. “If they’re serious about resale and upcycling and repair programs, they need to publish their production volumes and then set displacement targets.” So, a brand could say: “We want 10% of our sales to be secondhand, so we’ll cut back on 10% of new stock and replace it with resale.” But the bottom line is: We need to make better use of the clothes we own. If we fast-fashion the secondhand market, the planet still suffers. Things that might help: Shop local when you can, to avoid shipping your new shirt around the globe a second time. If you’re going online, avoid the temptation to overconsume. And ask yourself: Do I even need this right now? Because the most conscious choice would be to hold on to what’s already in your closet. If you’re really over your wardrobe, here’s another option: Swapping clothes with friends or people you trust. And honestly, this is way more fun than scrolling through an app. Where do you find your outfits? Let me know in the comments, don’t forget to subscribe for more videos like this, and check out dw.com for more stories.