Why Is It So Hard for Clothing Resale Platforms to Make Money?
Supply and demand are huge, but the rest of the math doesn’t work.
America’s overstuffed closets are crying out for relief. Their shelves are fecund; their rods, bowed. The situation under the country’s beds isn’t much better. If there’s one thing people in the US are rich in, it’s clothes that no longer fit, shoes that were never comfortable to begin with, and free hats and T-shirts they didn’t want or ask for.
How to beat back this apparel overflow has long been an open question, both for people trying to free up some closet space and for those worried all that surplus will eventually end up in the trash. Most estimates suggest the average American acquires clothing at a rate of at least one garment per week. And most of those clothes were made with the assumption that they’d be worn only a handful of times and then consigned to the back of your already jam-packed closet.