The Berlin resale specialist Reverse.supply has published the first Secondhand Readiness Index 2023, which assesses how ready the 38 most important German fashion brands from A like Adidas to Z like Zero are to enter the secondhand market.
Even though, according to HDE, half of German consumers already buy used clothing, peer-to-peer platforms have so far dominated without the influence of brands and retailers.
Hence Reverse.supply’s conclusion: “While more and more players are experimenting with re-commerce solutions, the market for German fashion brands remains largely untapped. The Secondhand Readiness Index proves that many brands meet the necessary requirements for trading in used fashion and encourages brands in the German market to take a step towards circularity by entering the re-commerce market.”
What are the advantages of secondhand?
In addition to an additional source of sales, brands benefit from increased customer loyalty and at the same time take an important step towards circularity: “Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies show that the environmental impact of a new T-shirt is 70 times greater than that of one reused. It also meets the expectations of a growing number of consumers. When choosing a brand, 71 percent of consumers think it is important that offers to take back used clothing exist,” says Reverse.supply.
Brands should also consider re-commerce offerings in view of upcoming EU regulations in the area of expanded responsibility for manufacturing companies.
How was “secondhand readiness” determined?
After selecting the fashion brands, Reverse.supply rated them on a scale of 1 to 100 based on five variables: absolute and relative price, website traffic, availability on peer-to-peer platforms, own web shop and condition of second-hand items.
The resulting index is intended to give as many fashion brands as possible access to their own second-hand market. “It often only takes a few adjustments to make your strategy and products secondhand-ready,” says Reverse.supply co-founder Janis Künkler.
Which brands are ready for secondhand?
The premium women’s fashion brand Marc Cain leads the index with a full 100 points, followed by jeans brand Closed (99.6 points) and outdoor brand Jack Wolfskin (96.4 points). Marc Cain was particularly impressive because of its good second-hand condition, Closed because of its relatively high resale values and Jack Wolfskin because of its good availability.
The rest of the top ten, which range from 95.7 to 90.9 points, are the German-Swedish label Marc O’Polo, sporting goods manufacturer Adidas, fashion group Hugo Boss, Otto subsidiary Bonprix and the women’s fashion brands Hallhuber, Opus and Betty Barclay ( in descending order).
The top twenty range from 85.4 points to 63.2 points and consist of Kappa, Esprit, C&A, Gerry Weber, Porsche Design, Schöffel, Tom Tailor, Allude, Bogner and Someday (also in descending order).
Which brands aren’t quite ready yet?
In the lower midfield (62.8 points to 53.4 points) are Camp David, Puma, Luisa Cerano, Olymp, Khujo, S.Oliver, Drykorn and Street One. The bottom performers are Mac (46.2 points), Zero (41.5 points), Cambio (37.2 points), Fynch-Hatton (36.4 points), Van Laack (34 points), New Yorker (33.6 points), Trigema (33.2 points), Eterna (24.5 points), More & More (14.2 points) and Escada (11.9 points).
What can fashion brands learn?
The index highlights three areas in particular in which companies can learn. Large brands whose second-hand products are primarily traded on peer-to-peer platforms should seize the opportunity to integrate second-hand trading into their own business model.
The basic requirement for this is an established and customer-friendly web shop. “The shopping experience for a used product can mirror that of a new product,” they conclude.
Re-commerce does not begin when a piece of clothing is sorted out, but rather in its creation phase; the better and longer lasting it is, the more life cycles it can go through.