The luxury resale market is no longer a side conversation in the fashion industry. It grew from $37.95 billion in 2025 to $41.61 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.6%, and is projected to reach $60.11 billion by 2030. Secondhand sales will grow two to three times faster than firsthand sales in the next two years, reaching $317 billion, according to the State of Fashion 2026 by Business of Fashion and McKinsey.

The global secondhand market sits at $393 billion and is growing faster than retail overall. Three forces are reshaping the market: technology reducing friction, consumers embedding resale into their financial lives, and brands playing a growing role. These are not just incremental numbers describing a niche, but also structural figures describing a fundamental shift in how people buy and value luxury goods, and the brands that have not yet built a coherent response to that shift are already behind.

Higher-spending luxury clients, not budget-conscious consumers, are the most engaged secondhand shoppers, according to BoF Insights and McKinsey. That finding is the one that most complicates the traditional luxury brand narrative. The assumption that secondhand shopping is primarily a price-sensitivity story is demonstrably wrong. A significant 58% of high-income shoppers now prefer authenticated secondhand goods over something off the rack.

More than 60% of luxury resale consumers cite affordability as the primary motivator, while 54% of buyers value sustainability, viewing resale as an ethical alternative to fast fashion. Both motivations are present simultaneously, and they serve different consumer segments, which means brands cannot address resale culture with a single strategy. They need one that speaks to the value-seeker and one that speaks to the values-seeker.

What the Numbers Are Telling Brands

Circular sales made up 27% of the luxury market last year, according to data from the Mastercard Economics Institute. Luxury reselling platform, Vinted, became France’s top retailer by volume this spring after growing net profit past 330% between 2023 and 2024. Mid-market brands have seen branded resale sales up by 300% between 2021 and 2025, according to State of Fashion 2026. These figures describe a category that has moved from alternative to essential within the luxury commercial landscape in a remarkably short period.

US online resale is forecast to grow 16% annually, reaching $34 billion by 2027. Online resale marketplaces account for 88% of resale spending in the US in 2024. The digital dimension of resale growth is particularly significant for luxury brands because it creates a parallel market that operates entirely outside their distribution control. 

A Hermès bag sold through the RealReal generates no revenue, no customer data, and no brand touchpoint managed by Hermès. The brand’s most coveted objects are circulating at significant volume through channels the brand does not control, at prices the brand does not set, reaching customers the brand may never otherwise reach.

Gen Z Is Driving the Shift From Both Sides

Nearly 32% of Gen Z’s closets are secondhand, rising to 45% for handbags. Gen Z shoppers are seven percentage points more likely to cite the excitement of finding a unique piece than the average consumer. For Gen Z, secondhand items are curated. A generation raised on climate data is now using their spending power as a form of activism. The focus of the luxury resale market has shifted from the visible brand name to the invisible impact of the purchase.

1 in 3 customers now considers the resale potential of fashion items, particularly in premium and luxury segments. Over 74% of consumers are willing to pay a premium for fully traceable and sustainability-verified fashion items, and 26% would pay up to 20% more for items with a digital product passport. This last data point carries significant commercial implications. 

A generation of buyers is now making primary purchase decisions based partly on secondary market value and partly on the product’s verifiable sustainability credentials. Brands that can provide those credentials, and that have built secondary market desirability into their products from the design stage, will attract and retain this cohort far more effectively than those who treat resale as a problem to be managed rather than an asset to be developed.

How Brands Are Responding and What Still Needs to Happen

Brands are increasingly launching their own resale programs, often through partnerships with infrastructure providers like Trove and Archive, to control pricing, customer data, and promote sustainability. Innovations like Croissant for guaranteed buyback pricing are enhancing market liquidity and integrating resale into primary purchase decisions.

Resale also serves as a gateway: 43% of thrifty shoppers later buy firsthand products from the same brand, according to the State of Fashion. That gateway figure reframes the entire resale conversation for brand strategists. A buyer who enters a brand’s world through the secondary market and then converts to a primary market customer is a customer acquisition story, not a revenue leakage story.

Companies like The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective continue to leverage AI-driven tools and blockchain technology to enhance the accuracy and reliability of authenticating pre-owned luxury items. However, only 7% of industry executives plan to support circular business models, and less than one-third of industry executives called resale a priority for 2026, according to the State of Fashion.

That gap between the market’s growth rate and the industry’s response rate is where the opportunity and the risk both live. The brands that close it first will have built a competitive advantage in the fastest-growing segment of the luxury market. The ones that wait will find that the platform players have built the customer relationships instead.

Featured image: StyleRave Studio/AI-generated Visual