More than 8 in 10 shop resale to discover new brands

Trade conferences often feature industry analysts, and yet an April 3 presentation from Colleen Baum, senior partner at McKinsey & Company, was nothing if not novel. That’s both because Baum was speaking at ReCon, which billed itself as “the only conference focused exclusively on resale,” and—fittingly but still unusually—she was speaking exclusively about the state of the global resale market.

The State of Fashion 2026 report by McKinsey in partnership with Business of Fashion projects that the global secondhand apparel market will grow to $317 billion in 2027, up from an estimated $256 billion in 2025. So brisk is the growth of resale that in its recent annual report, ThredUp stated that the resale industry is taking “measurable” market share from new retail.

Here are some of Baum’s insights from the ReCon stage:

Tariffs and inflation are helping to drive resale growth

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, stimulus checks provided disposable income for many people, and self-care often took the form of splurging.

“People started to play up in the price tiers that they could afford, and they got used to being able to experience luxury—whatever luxury is to them,” Baum said.

Today, the urge to splurge lingers, but between tariffs and what Baum called a “hyperinflationary market,” consumers don’t have the funds to fulfill that urge—unless they spend dramatically less by buying the items they covet used, rather than new.

“Tariffs have only created a tailwind for the secondhand market,” Baum said. “If you still want to participate in a luxury price point, resale is the most affordable way to do that.”

Luxury brands use resale to acquire new customers

Baum highlighted McKinsey data that 84% of US resale shoppers do so to discover new brands. Particularly relevant to brands: 58% of those whose first purchase of a brand’s products was secondhand subsequently purchase new items from those same brands.

“This is an interesting way for higher-price-point brands to acquire new customers in a slightly more affordable way,” Baum said. “The [customer acquisition cost] through resale is going to be quite a bit better, and allows folks particularly to experiment in luxury price points that may not have been able to do on firsthand” products.

The maturity of a country’s resale market determines what sells best

Along with different cultural norms, it’s the maturity of countries’ resale markets that determines what resale clothing and accessories categories sell best.

In China, which Baum characterized as one of “the least mature resale markets,” the top resale categories on resale platforms are watches, followed by bags.

For those categories, “the value of the good is easier to determine,” Baum said. “You know that a Rolex on the secondary market is going to hold its value. Similar for bags.”

While in a newer market like China, these products—which effectively are assets—top the list, in a more mature resale market like the UK, it’s everyday items, namely dresses, followed by tops. The US, which Baum said is between China and the UK maturity-wise, outerwear tops the list, followed by watches.

But as the US resale market continues to evolve, Baum predicts it will begin to mirror the UK with more everyday items like dresses and tops.

“We would expect in the coming years for the US consumer to start to look more like [what] we’re seeing in the UK,” Baum said.