How resale will keep growing in 2026

To say that resale will grow in 2026 is not a prediction so much as stating the obvious. For apparel alone, the global resale market grew from $141 billion in 2021 to an estimated $256 billion in 2025, an 82% increase, according to a report from resale marketplace ThredUp. In 2026, ThredUp estimates the global resale apparel market will grow 12.5% YoY to $288 billion.

But while growth is a near certainty, exactly what will drive that growth is not. So we asked industry insiders to dust off their preloved crystal balls and predict what the future holds for resale in 2026.

AI will continue to transform resale

When eBay launched in 1995, selling used items online took dedication, since in the pre-smartphone era, sellers would need to take photos on a digital camera, transfer the photos to a computer via SD cards or wired connections, and of course have a reliable internet connection, which was far from universal in homes or workplaces.

While smartphones have dramatically streamlined the process, today it is AI that’s transforming re-commerce yet again.

Jake Disraeli, co-founder and CEO of Treet, which partners with retail brands on their resale programs, said 2026 will find more brands and marketplaces develop what he called “AI-powered” listings.

When a seller begins to list an item for sale by posting a photo of it, AI automatically starts to populate the entire listing, Disraeli said, meaning it can determine its SKU, size, condition to suggest a selling price, and even pull original product photos and descriptions.

“Rather than manually entering in ‘There’s a scuff mark on the shoe,’ ‘It’s missing a button,’” just by posting a photo, those resellers increasingly will be “generating the full listing through AI,” Disraeli told Retail Brew.

Footwear will get more of a foothold

Emily Gittins, co-founder and CEO of Archive, which partners with brands on their resale programs, said footwear sales among its retail partners grew 80% YoY in 2025, and she predicts more footwear brands will launch branded resale programs in 2026.

“From a consumer perspective, you either tend to buy a pair of shoes and wear them to death, or buy a pair of shoes and realize that they’re not the right fit, and maybe just keep them” anyway, Gittins told Retail Brew. “There’s a lot of high-quality inventory actually sitting in people’s closets, so I’m anticipating that there’ll be a lot more footwear brands diving in and making this big business in 2026.”

Livestream shopping will liven things up

In December, eBay launched its version of livestream shopping, eBay Live, in Australia, after introducing the feature on its platform in the US, UK, and Germany. During an eBay livestream auction based in the US in October, a Rolex watch fetched more than $95,000.

Alexis Hoopes, VP of global fashion at eBay, said that whether it’s anything from watches to fashion to collectibles, the live auctions highlight the expertise and rapport among buyers and sellers, and that it will grow in 2026.

Livestream shopping “is a great vehicle for what is at the core of eBay, which is this connection between buyers and sellers, and it brings it to life in a completely new way,” Hoopes told Retail Brew. “I’m really excited about that as a new channel for people to engage both buyers and sellers with re-commerce.”

New regulations will drive more brands to resale

Laws aimed at circularity also are apt to encourage the resale market in the upcoming year.

Disraeli noted that major provisions of California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 (SB 707), which aims to improve the circularity among apparel brands, will be implemented in 2026, and that brands can lower the fees they pay by ensuring their products are reused through resale programs rather than landfilled.

“More brands broadly will be pushed to adopt resale and be pushed to embed resale across their customer journey, if you will, because how much they pay in fees will be directly related to these initiatives,” Disraeli said.