Global trade of secondhand clothing

The global trade of secondhand clothing has a long history. Until the mid 19th century, second hand clothing was an important way of acquiring clothing. Only through industrialization, mass production, and increasing income, was the general public able to purchase new, rather than second-hand, clothing.

During Europe's colonial days, second-hand garments were exported to the colonies and, locally, charity shops catering for the poor sprang up.

Since the 2nd World War, the second-hand clothing trade, globally, has grown considerably. With environmental issues being more prominent and fashion pollution noted, people learn how to be environmental friendly and second-hand/pre-owned stores have become very fashionable and respectable in Europe and the US. Internet connectivity added strongly to the online trade of second-hand garments.

Charity organizations and resale retail businesses

Charity organizations, like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and Oxfam, are the largest contributors^{[citation needed]} to the secondhand and pre-owned clothing categories. These organizations collect clothes and sell them to the poor beyond their country's borders or re-sell them in brick and mortar retail shops as a fundraising strategy.

Whereas charity shops dominated the secondhand market from the 1960s to the 1970s, more specialized, profit-oriented shops emerged in the 1980s^{[citation needed]}. These shops catered primarily to the fashionable female demographic and offered women and children designer clothes, and occasionally high-end formal wear for men. Resale boutiques specialized in contemporary high-end used designer fashion (for example, 2nd Take, or Couture Designer Resale), while others (such as Buffalo Exchange and Plato's Closet) specialize in vintage or retro fashion, period fashion, or contemporary basics and one-of-a-kind finds. Still others cater to specific active sports by specializing in things like riding equipment, diving gear, etc. The resale business model has now expanded into the athletic equipment, books, and music categories. Secondhand sales migrated to a peer-to-peer platform—effectively cutting out the retailer as the middleman—when websites such as eBay and Amazon introduced the opportunity for Internet users to sell virtually anything online, including designer (or fraudulent) handbags, fashion, shoes, and accessories.

Secondhand clothing: a recycling option

The customer base of secondhand clothing market is usually extremely cost-conscious and often promotes the ideologies of sustainability and environmentalism. Secondhand clothing, after all, is the recycling of used and/or unwanted clothing, and this reciprocal buy/sell/trade transaction between the customer and the retailer saves an incalculable amount of unwanted clothing from dumps and landfills.

On a larger scale, textile recycling warehouses, who grade used or pre-owned clothes have become very prominent and influential in the second-hand trade. These sorted garments are compressed into bales of 50 kilograms (110 lb) and exported. Unsorted second-hand clothes can be compressed into bales of 500 to 1000 kg. The better graded used clothing is exported to Central American Countries and the lower graded clothing is shipped to Africa and Asia. The hubs for commercial sorting of preowned clothes are in South Asia, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary. The secondhand trade has more than doubled between 1991 and 2004 due to increased demand in former Eastern Bloc and African Countries.

In wealthy Western countries, used and pre-owned clothes occupy a niche market, whether in third world countries, second-hand clothing imported from the west, are a staple source of clothing. The largest exporters of used clothing are the US, followed by the UK, Germany and the Netherlands^{[citation needed]}.

The world largest importers of used clothing are Sub-Saharan countries, receiving over 25% of global second-hand clothing exports.

Some countries, such as India and the Philippines, have banned the import of secondhand clothes in order to protect the local textile industry. Other countries with flourishing textile industries, such as Pakistan, Uganda, and South Africa, allow import but may place certain restrictions. South Africa, for example, allows the import of second-hand/pre-owned clothing for charitable purposes but not for commercial resale.

The second-hand clothing trade varies from country to country. Second-hand shops in South Africa and Zambia feature mostly imported clothing, in Western fashions. Shops in other countries, including Nigeria and Senegal, mostly stock domestically produced clothing in local and traditional styles. Internal markets for second-hand goods can extend beyond physical shop locations as well, such as in South Africa where many people use websites like Gumtree, eBay, and Craigslist. Diverse demand in major economic hubs like Cape Town has led to the presence of both inexpensive charity shops, and high end boutique-style shops like 2nd Take which sell second-hand designer clothes.

The cycle of second hand clothing seems to be perpetual and lucrative. This goes for consignment stores like 2nd Take, where clothes which fail to sell are either returned to their owners or donated to charities, or stores that will sell unsold garments on to textile recyclers or second-hand stores.

Secondhand clothing: Covid Pandemic

Since the outbreak of Covid worldwide in 2020, purchasing used clothing was a risk of contracting the disease. With the collection and distribution of apparel across multiple countries, it is essential to wash all clothing before wearing it. Mainly if it's transported across the ocean to collect second-hand clothes and distribute them across different countries; otherwise, the virus may spread from one country to another. The Bureau of International Recycling advised people to wash second-hand clothing before wearing it, as it may contain Covid.

During the pandemic, the Coronavirus disease caused many people to go unemployed or have insufficient funds to purchase clothing from stores because they could not afford it. Second-hand clothing was the best option since it was the cheapest option. It was a popular demand in many countries worldwide to purchase second-hand clothing during the pandemic, with the sale of 2020 second-hand clothing increasing by approximately 27 percent.

Thredup^[1] is a company that sells second-hand clothing online. They have collected reports of second-hand selling with the assistance of Global data; they have compiled numerous reports of online success over the years, with second-hand clothing sales increasing significantly and expected to continue growing. More than 60% of second-hand clothing was purchased online, making online purchases of second-hand clothing the most popular method for purchasing second-hand clothing in 2020.

References

^ "2022 Fashion Resale Market and Trend Report". www.thredup.com. Retrieved 31 October 2022.

External links

Sally Baden and Catherine Barber, "The impact of second-hand clothing trade on developing countries", "Oxfam", September 2005
Hansen, Karen Tranberg (1999). "Second-Hand Clothing Encounters in Zambia: Global Discourses, Western Commodities, and Local Histories". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 69 (3). Cambridge University Press: 343–365. doi:10.2307/1161212. JSTOR 1161212. S2CID 145796625.
"Trade in Used Clothing", International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers Federation, 6 April 2010

[1] "2022 Fashion Resale Market and Trend Report". www.thredup.com. Retrieved 31 October 2022.

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