India’s luxury resale market is untapped but ready to thrive

The proliferation of resale platforms selling luxury goods online at a profit spells good news for pre-loved clothes and accessories

The recent boom in the resale of luxury products across the world is one of the many developments in the industry, and there are numbers to prove it. According to areport by Statista, in 2021, the global luxury resale market reached an overall value of approximately $33 billion, with the market size expected to increase to $47 billion by 2025. These statistics also reveal how consumers have become increasingly inclined to not only shop virtually but also share their carefully curated lives online, all the while selling their pre-owned luxury goods. 

Aninsight by Business of Fashion states that 62 per cent of surveyed luxury shoppers actively selling on resale websites have resold a luxury accessory for a profit. We speak to a few experts to understand the value of luxury fashion purchases and how the otherwise untapped resale sector in India is on the verge of turning into a flourishing business.  

Luxury as an investment

Compared to offerings from fast fashion brands, the quality, durability and timelessness of luxury products makes them fit enough to be resold. Luxury resale platforms like The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective offer vintage and pre-loved outfits from designers such as Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, The Row and even accessories from brands like Tiffany & Co, Cartier and Hermès. 

In 2020, Farfetch—a British-Portuguese online luxury fashion retail platform—unveiled Farfetch Second Life, a resale purchasing offering for second-hand designer bags. Following its launch, the website saw a 17 per cent increase in new users online. Seeing an opportunity for further growth, Farfetched acquired Luxclusif in 2021— a platform that provides resale-as-a-service in luxury—either as a B2B marketplace or through a buyback programme.

According to a recentreport, China’s fashion resale platform Hongbulin—also known as Plum—revealed that over 10,000 consumers participated in second-hand consumption during the nation’s annual shopping bonanza. Their top three brands were Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Breathing fresh life into pre-owned luxury products is how the younger generation is looking at fashion now.

Pernia Qureshi, as the co-founder of Saritoria—an online platform offering pre-loved clothing made by South Asian designers—insists on the value that a luxury item can provide in your closet. “When you buy a luxury item, it usually has three lives in your wardrobe. The first phase is the one you enjoy wearing it yourself and getting your return of investment from the joy you feel. The second is passing it down to your sister, daughter or friends to have or borrow. The last phase can be reselling the item and gaining returns on your own investment. In some cases, with brands like Chanel and Hermès, you can even resell at a monetary profit,” says Qureshi.

Apart from high-end luxury labels, even brands like Balenciaga and Alaïa are realising the scope of growth in the resale market. Alaïa recently announced its partnership with French pre-loved platform Re-SEE for an exclusive curation of Alaïa vintage pieces. A few months ago, Reflaunt, a platform that brings resale-as-a-service to fashion brands and multi-brand retailers revealed a new partnership with Balenciaga and Saks Off 5th for its resale-as-a-service offering. 

In India, Saundh, a premium Indianwear label, has extended its sartorial journey with its new affiliation with Relove—a digital platform that emphasises buying pre-loved pieces—to run their own online thrift shops and promote both buying and selling of pre-loved garments. “Customers today are not traditional buyers. They are more aware of their choices and care about the product’s journey and the story behind it. For a brand, deciding the value of its product is a combination of numerous factors, from design and prototyping to retailing and marketing and so on. We strongly believe that if one calls themselves a luxury brand, its significance as an heirloom is already a given from its inception and will reflect in its value.” says Sarabjeet Saluja, founder and CEO of Saundh.

The concept of a circular economy is not just prevalent in luxury fashion; it extends to sneakers as well. In 2021, it wasreported that the sneaker resale market was worth $6 billion with classic brands like Jordans and Nike getting the best resale value (Jordans were re-selling for 54 per cent above retail price on an average, while Nike sneakers were resold at 46 per cent above retail price on an average). Abbas Zaveri of HypeFly India—one of India’s prominent buying, selling and consignment platforms for sneakers—explains why these particular shoes hold a power over the “kicks” from brands like Balenciaga or Dior. “When it comes to buying a designer product, the moment it leaves the store, even if it’s completely new, it falls in value by approximately 30 per cent. Once it’s worn, the value drops even further. On the other hand, when you purchase Jordans or Air Maxs—which are among the most classic pairs of sneakers—there’s a very high chance of an increase in their prices, making them a better investment of luxury,” says Zaveri.

Luxury resale in India

When it comes to the Indian market, Qureshi sees luxury reselling as the future. “With the number of luxury shoppers and aspirational customers moving towards pre-loved pieces, brands will have no choice but to work in conjunction with the pre-loved fashion industry. In fact, the more demand there is for a particular brand’s pre-loved pieces, the more the brand value will appreciate,” she says, predicting that Indian designers, too, will benefit from the pre-loved sector as European brands already have globally. “In our first year of business, we saw creations by Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Anamika Khanna get the most interest on the platform, retaining the highest value among Indian designers,” says Shehlina Soomro, Saritoria’s co-founder, who launched their resale platform in 2020. “In terms of the product type, occasion wear retains the most value,” she adds.

While in India the idea of circular fashion has always existed with hand-me-downs within the family, the commercialisation of this concept is now replicated by retail brands too. “People have been borrowing, renting and buying pre-owned clothes since a long time, as it was mainly with their cousins, close friends or immediate family members. With its commercialisation, we do see an increase in platforms where one can access quality pre-owned products," says Saluja, who also points at the concept’s sustainable aspect. “Along with the customers, it also helps brands like ourselves to be circular and climb one step closer towards the journey of offering conscious fashion,” he adds.

With sneakers, however, while there are a number of young resellers on Instagram copping the latest kicks and selling them at higher mark-up prices, Zaveri believes that India’s resale market is still untapped. “While there has been a massive growth, it’s nowhere near its maximum potential. The number of people who can afford such sneakers in India is exponentially high; in fact it is greater than the number of people in the United States or the United Kingdom where the sneaker market is much bigger,” concludes Zaveri.

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