ThredUP debuts Recommerce 100 to rate fashion industry resale efforts

The world’s largest fashion resale platform, ThreadUP, has launched a new index, called Recommerce 100, that tracks brands and retailers that have launched resale programs and their potential environmental impact.

ThredUp’s resale experts compile a monthly index that measures companies’ resale adoption and top brands’ estimated shop size, with an emphasis on fashion labels and shops selling their own pre-owned products online in the United States. The index also tracks the number of resale shops that brands are opening year over year, as well as the number of resale listings in each brand’s resale shop.

James Reinhart, CEO of thredUP, said that at this rate, the number of new resale stores created in 2022 is likely to outnumber all other secondhand shops launched to date. The increased adoption of resale is encouraging, but for the industry to have a big impact, more considerable investment from participating brands and retailers is required. The goal of the Recommerce 100 is to raise awareness about resale shop penetration and to recognize the brands that are having the most effective through resale.

The March 2022 Recommerce 100 revealed that there are an estimated 41 companies operating resale stores with over 133,000 total product listings, according to the report. According to Green Story Inc., if all 133,000 postings were sold, it would be the equivalent of 27,000 trees being planted and 374 homes being powered yearly.

ThredUp further notes that 22 brands opened their own resale shops in 2021, with another 11 opening in the first three months of 2022. At least 25 of the 41 branded resale stores identified are tiny, private businesses.

While this is good news for the fashion industry’s sustainability, ThredUp claims that some brands are only scraping the surface of re-commerce’s potential impact, as it discovered that 20 labels have fewer than 200 secondhand store listings.

There are over 40 new brands offering Take Back-only programs, according to the March index, with smaller brands displaying leadership in the market. According to ThredUp, they estimate that the top brands’ average resale penetration is less than 0.1 percent of those brands’ total revenue.

Eileen Fisher ranks in first among the major names leading the way in resale product listings. The top five are Tea Collection, Lululemon, REI, and Patagonia, with Nation Ltd, Michael Stars, Kut from the Kloth, Levi’s, and Madewell rounding out the top ten. Allbirds and Steve Madden were ranked 14th and 15th in ThredUp’s March index, respectively.

By 2025, resale is predicted to grow 11 times faster than the overall retail clothes market, according to ThredUp, with a third of CEOs considering resale as “table stakes for shops.”