The Apparel Digest Report
ThredUp is taking the lead in changing how people interact with fashion in a world where sustainability and over consumption are growing issues. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Oakland, California, ThredUp is an online marketplace that provides a seamless experience for both buyers and sellers of used clothing, accessories, and shoes. The company primarily serves customers in the United States and Canada, offering shipping within these regions. Yet it’s ThredUp’s wider vision that sets it apart, working to make secondhand fashion accessible and mainstream while contributing to the growing movement toward sustainable consumption.
For sellers, the procedure is straightforward. They start by requesting a Clean Out Kit and sending in lightly used apparel using ThredUp’s pre-paid label. ThredUp carefully examines each item after it is received to make sure it satisfies their quality requirements. AI-powered technologies are then used to process accepted items, helping with pricing, photography, and classification. For effective handling, every item is assigned a QR code and passes via an automated system.
Following processing, the goods are put up for sale on ThredUp’s marketplace. Tens of thousands of inspected used goods, many from luxury or designer labels, are available for buyers to peruse at discounts of up to 90% off suggested retail pricing. Each sale generates a commission for the seller, with rewards depending on the brand and resale value of the item. For instance, a compensation of 30% to 60% of the listing price may be obtained for items priced between $50 and $99.99.
In order to ensure that the item’s life cycle is prolonged in an environmentally friendly way, sellers can choose to recover unsold items or let ThredUp recycle or donate them through its network of partners. ThredUp does not discard unsold inventory directly. Instead, it partners with aftermarket firms such as Bank & Vogue, which help redistribute garments to global markets. This includes reselling or reprocessing items that might otherwise go to waste.
In 2018, ThredUp started giving companies and retailers access to its platform so they could engage in direct resale. Since then, this project has developed into a full-featured Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform. To make things easier for its partners, ThredUp is now removing the costs related to branded resale and introducing improved services.
This calculated action was taken since the secondhand market is becoming more and more involved with unsold inventory and returned goods, two areas where many brands encounter logistical challenges. By providing its operational infrastructure and reselling technologies to partners completely free of charge, ThredUp hopes to help resolve this issue.
ThredUp intends to provide a peer-to-peer resale marketplace that companies can integrate into their own resale shops before the end of the year, along with enhanced integration tools to better handle returns.
Released in March 2025, ThredUp’s 13th annual Resale Report offers a thorough overview of the US secondhand clothing market, highlighting the sector’s remarkable development and key trends.
- Market Growth: In 2024, the U.S. market for used clothing expanded by 14%, the most since 2021. In the same year, online resale climbed by 23 percent, five times faster than the whole retail clothes market. By 2029, the market is expected to grow to $74 billion, with online resale almost doubling to $40 billion during that time.
- Consumer Shifts:59% of customers stated that if trade and tariff policies increased the cost of clothing, they would look for less expensive options, such as used clothing. With 69% of Millennials saying they would prefer used options in these economic times, this is especially important to them. Additionally, in the upcoming year, shoppers intend to spend 34% of their clothing budget on secondhand goods, with Gen Z and Millennials spending close to 46%.
- Retailer Adjustments: 44% of fashion retailers want to lessen their dependency on imported items, and 80% of them anticipate that new trade and tariff policies will upset their global supply networks. It’s interesting to note that, despite possible tariff swings, 54% of shops think resale offers a more reliable and consistent source of goods.
- Technology and Personalization: Artificial intelligence (AI) and cutting-edge technologies are completely changing the way people purchase for used goods. According to 48% of consumers, shopping secondhand is as simple as shopping new because to personalized features and enhanced search and discovery. Among younger generations, this percentage jumps to 59%. Furthermore, 39% of younger consumers buy used clothing via social media sites, indicating the growing popularity of social commerce.
ThredUp has handled more than 172 million unique pre-owned items from over 55,000 brands and 100 categories. While it abandoned the European market in December 2024 by selling Remix (which it had bought in 2021), its goal continues to become the industry’s worldwide recommerce layer.
This strategy positions ThredUp not only as a resale platform but also as a key enabler of circular retailing. It aims to create a sustainable and scalable system by integrating resale directly into brand ecosystems and utilizing technology to make the process as smooth as possible and enhance the secondhand shopping experience.
