New tech frontier as resale strikes from area of interest to mainstream
Recommerce, pre-loved, resale, or second-hand items – no matter synonym one want to use – is an enormous focus space for retail.
It has moved from area of interest to mainstream, in accordance with the fifth annual Recommerce report from on-line market eBay.
The report, revealed in November 2025, reveals 89% of worldwide customers surveyed anticipate to spend the identical quantity or extra on preloved items in 2025 in contrast with 2024. With greater than 27,000 individuals surveyed globally, together with each eBay sellers and normal customers, it’s a complete research that may be trusted.
A key discovering from the report is that recommerce is now not considered solely instead solution to store, however as “a acutely aware way of life selection pushed by private values, neighborhood connection and monetary empowerment”.
As Jamie Iannone, CEO at eBay, says within the report: “Recommerce is redefining how individuals store – led by a brand new technology that values connection, function and sustainability.
“Almost 80% of Gen Z and millennials see themselves as a part of this motion, turning their ardour for preloved objects into actual impression.”
Iannone mentioned eBay’s synthetic intelligence (AI)-powered instruments are making it “simpler than ever” for individuals and retailers to resell items on-line and provides them one other life beneath the possession of somebody new.
And the reference to know-how is a pertinent one, as a result of there’s an entire enterprise software program market forming to assist this ever-burgeoning space of retail.
In 2025 alone, resale platform supplier Archive raised $30m in Sequence B funding, with the money getting used to develop the corporate’s “resale intelligence software program”, drive extra world partnerships, and ship product innovation and providers. That was introduced final February, after which, in June, Germany-based Brandback revealed it had raised $7.4m throughout its pre-seed and seed funding rounds to assist its progress within the area.
Brandback’s funding is being directed in the direction of enhancing its engineering groups, working by itself AI capabilities, and onboarding extra world retailers.
In 2025, Pc Weekly lined cell apps 2.0, digital shelf labels, digital receipts and in-store tech to discourage criminals as 4 of the most popular areas of innovation and funding in retail this yr, and resale tech will be added to that checklist.
Digital IDs and one-click listings
Final yr – 12 months on from its acquisition of digital ID and authentication platform Certilogo – eBay launched a click-to-resell function utilizing Certilogo’s related product sensible tags. It means customers can checklist their clothes on eBay in a few clicks of a button, with the brand new function constructed into Certilogo’s Safe by Design digital ID.
Italian outerwear and way of life model Save The Duck was the primary to pilot the function, which permits sellers to scan a QR code on clothes related with the digital ID labels for immediate on-line itemizing.
The scan prompts a “resell your garment” button on the merchandise’s digital profile which directs them to examine the authenticity of the merchandise by means of Certilogo’s synthetic intelligence (AI)-based ID system by signing in with their eBay account. As soon as the examine is accomplished, an eBay itemizing will likely be pre-filled with info, however sellers can add extra info in the event that they want to.
In 2023, eBay launched what it calls its “magical itemizing device”, which makes use of AI to extrapolate particulars about listings from pictures, and permits sellers to checklist objects shortly and guarantee patrons have complete product info earlier than making a purchase order. {The marketplace} continues to discover new methods of utilizing AI as new strands of the know-how evolve.
Tech behind the scenes
The checklist of resale tech suppliers is in depth; it’s a crowded market, nevertheless it additionally offers proof of the buyer demand for purchasing second-hand objects from their favorite manufacturers.
Round providers platform supplier Save Your Wardrobe’s co-founder, Hasna Kourda, says “extra companies wish to take an opportunity” when there’s enormous curiosity in a market.
Certainly, Amazon-commissioned analysis by financial forecast group the Centre for Economics Enterprise Analysis (CEBR) discovered two-thirds of Brits purchased second-hand items on-line in 2024. The net second-hand market is anticipated to be value £4.8bn in 2025, in accordance with the research, which cited cost-of-living pressures, wider availability of pre-owned merchandise and environmental consciousness as driving elements.
US-based Archive is working with firms corresponding to The North Face, Lululemon and New Stability to permit these manufacturers to run their very own resale channels, whereas Treet kickstarted a resale platform partnership with on-line style retailer Oh Polly in Might.
Resale as a service (RaaS) is a progress market, and it sits inside a wider cohort of circularity platforms aiming to assist retailers drive worth from recommerce, restore and rental.
One outstanding UK participant in that area is Motherwell-based ACS Clothes, which calls itself a round style hub and manages the logistics, corresponding to cleansing, storage and transportation, for retailers that supply repairs, rental and resale. It additionally aligns with tech suppliers corresponding to Archive when retailers choose to usher in a devoted RaaS supplier.
Andrew Tough, CEO of ACS Clothes, which counts formalwear retailer Moss and Scandi denim model Nudie Denims’ fast-growing UK arm amongst its clients, says the amount of tech companions complicates the market.
“They’re all promoting the same service and, rightly, make out their tech is the perfect – however this makes it a bit difficult,” he explains, including that tech accomplice ACS has labored with previously have generally been responsible of overstating what they provide retailers.
He says retail service suppliers ought to by no means give the impression they will do issues they will’t, underlining how ACS does a whole lot of the behind-the-scenes work to assist manufacturers’ front-end recommerce.
Essentially, although, Tough thinks retailers that haven’t already completed so have to get into the recommerce area, “in any other case they’ll be left behind”.
“Manufacturers contact us saying they should do one thing round however they don’t know what to do, and I discover that odd as a result of they need to be assembly the calls for of their clients,” he notes.
“They are saying, ‘We don’t actually wish to be in resale,’ however the reality is that they already are. In the event you go on eBay or Depop, individuals are shopping for the product, however manufacturers and retailers aren’t a part of the transaction and so they’re lacking out on a fantastic alternative.”
Save Your Wardrobe’s Kourda says her firm is exclusive in its sector, and that the enterprise continues to put money into its tech stack to make its platform as compelling and helpful as doable as extra firms search round providers for his or her clients.
One funding has been an AI harm detector which Kourda says recognises defects and offers “an immediate prognosis earlier than planning subsequent steps for the perfect restore doable”.
Manufacturers utilizing it introduce their particular person insurance policies to the system to allow them to present a tailor-made service to their clients.
“It was in reply to the lack of awareness in retail and retailers, the place there’s a data hole round repairs and warranties,” says Kourda. “The harm detector related to our mapped-out aftercare providers creates an built-in answer to assist companies right away, permitting them to direct merchandise to the suitable class.”
Embedded resale and interconnectivity
ACS integrates into a number of main resale platforms, and in 2025, it invested in and expanded its tech to permit its clients to multi-list on Depop and eBay – and it’ll quickly do the identical with luxurious market Vestiaire Collective, in accordance with Tough.
“Manufacturers can now concurrently checklist the identical merchandise on completely different marketplaces – if purchased on one, it’ll be eliminated routinely from the others,” he notes.
“We’ve got enhanced our personal tech capabilities so a model can come to us straight. The explanation why a model will go to an Archive or considered one of its friends is as a result of they’ll construct a frontend platform, but when a model desires their objects in eBay and Depop, we are able to try this for them.”
Tough says the likes of eBay and Vinted are literally “driving the price of second-hand down”.
“We’ve got been capable of present when it’s a managed branded market, the identical merchandise can promote for ten occasions extra as a result of individuals pay extra as a result of they’re getting authenticity and in some circumstances guarantee – shopping for off somebody you belief somewhat than not realizing who they’re,” he says.
Enhancing capabilities
That embedded resale is what Berlin-based Brandback touts as the important thing to success in recommerce, and it has a rising group of engineers engaged on its proposition to make sure it continues to enhance its capabilities. Its software program integrates straight into on-line retailers’ baskets, listings and checkouts, and the corporate says it allows a “seamless” resale expertise for patrons whereas additionally unlocking new income streams for retailers.
For instance, Brandback’s software program permits its retailer clients to show resale values at checkout, which it says helps increase conversion charges.
It’s an indication there’s a rising variety of customers contemplating the afterlife of an merchandise earlier than they’ve even purchased it new.
Usually in terms of sustainability and know-how technique, retailers will launch issues their clients haven’t essentially requested. Strikes will likely be made within the title of company social duty, assembly new laws, or innovation for innovation’s sake.
By its recommerce report, eBay is highlighting how customers really need extra resale choices. And in accordance with {the marketplace}, consumers are embracing recommerce for each sensible and purposeful causes, “balancing monetary motivation with values-driven intent”.
Saving cash
Some 81% of customers cite saving cash as one of many key causes for purchasing pre-loved items, with 45% referencing sustainability and environmental advantages.
Intriguingly, 63% of customers contemplate themselves a part of a “recommerce neighborhood”, with that quantity rising to nearly 80% amongst Gen Z and millennials. For years, on-line retail has all the time lagged behind bodily retail shops when it comes to the interplay and private relationships it could possibly foster, however with the continued rise of recommerce, that is altering.
All of this bodes properly for the tech market within the resale area, which additionally options software program suppliers corresponding to Trove, Faume and Zeercle, in addition to devoted platforms corresponding to The Little Loop.
Depop and Vinted sit alongside eBay as tech-enabled marketplaces seeking to assist the rising pre-loved market.
Kourda argues that including the choice of a restore guarantee and embedding it alongside resale may assist luxurious retailers and types get extra from the recommerce area.
“There may be nonetheless maturity to return out there – in case you add restore you’ll be able to enhance worth to the objects they promote and assist convert a second-hand buy,” she says.
Room for evolution
There’s definitely room for the recommerce market – and the tech supporting it – to evolve within the 12 months forward. And it’ll, in accordance with Tough.
“It’s inevitable there’ll be consolidation out there,” he argues.
“In the event you return to the explosion of the web and e-commerce – manufacturers started by outsourcing it and acquired third events to construct web sites then they went in-house. Recommerce may go down this route – there’s certain to be consolidation, and types will wish to do it themselves.
“The tech companions are a stepping stone to the place retailers and types will finally get to,” says Tough.
