Websites that enable users to resell luxury items are gaining popularity
Websites that enable users to buy and sell pre-owned designer label items are gaining popularity, writes Francesca Fearon
We all love a designer label and we all love a bargain, but biannual sales only happen, well, twice a year. So what do we do during those other months when we want to feed our designer habit, but are on a budget?
We turn to the internet.
If you want to buy a Chanel dress, you don't go to buy it at the equivalent of a chain store
But there is another route to satisfy discount junkies, and one that savvy shoppers in Europe are latching onto fast: re-commerce sites.
"Re-commerce" is a rather inelegant industry word for pre-owned luxury fashion items that are bought and sold. In Britain and France, sites have opened up such as Hardly Ever Worn It, Vestiaire Collective and Covetique; these are luxury online platforms for selling designer fashion that may or may not have been worn before.
Someone's fashion mistake may be another's must-have. Vestiaire Collective and Covetique's curated sites have fixed prices for the nearly new Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Hermès, and so forth. Hardly Ever Worn It works a bit like eBay as an auction site, although it's considerably more sophisticated. So if you are lusting after a Fendi bag, a Chanel dress or a pair of Alexander Wang shoes, these are good places to go hunting.
Each site operates slightly differently. At Vestiaire Collective, you can sell your nearly new items: they will choose what they consider will sell from an analysis of what's trading on their site. After having checked the item's authenticity, they will photograph and post it online, and once it's sold, ship it on your behalf.
