What's Happening In The Secondhand Fashion Industry?

The MXMLST edit Podcast

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What's Happening In The Secondhand Fashion Industry?

This week, I chat with Kristina Urquhart of The Vintage Seeker. We talk about the landscape of the secondhand fashion industry for sellers and shoppers!

Emilie @ MXMLST Collection

Sep 14, 2022

The secondhand fashion industry is my every day - I work in it, I shop in it and I dream about it. But what does it look like right now? We see it growing exponentially with the rising urgency to fight the climate crisis but how are sellers and shoppers responding to it?

Today, I’m honoured to be talking to Kristina Urquhart, the founder and creator at The Vintage Seeker, a modern magazine and online community for vintage and antique sellers, thrifters and shoppers of secondhand. Kristina is a wealth of knowledge and resources for sellers and shoppers in the resale market in Canada! Today, we’ll be talking a bit more about the current landscape of the secondhand fashion industry and the opportunities and challenges we’re facing as an industry, for sellers and for shoppers!

This interview is even better on audio! I encourage you to listen it as a podcast above.

VISIT THE VINTAGE SEEKER

INTERVIEW

How did you personally start engaging in the secondhand industry and what led you to creating the Vintage Seeker?

So I’ve been interested in vintage for a long time, but it was really when I started regularly visiting markets after moving to Toronto in 2013 that I became more aware of the industry as a whole. Over the years, I got to know some sellers who are local to this area. Just in chatting to them I was learning more and more about the business.

Like so many ventures, The Vintage Seeker itself was born out of the pandemic. I’m a journalist by trade and have been a magazine editor, mostly for business-to-business and business-to-consumer publications, for about 15 years. Over the summer of 2020 I had that nagging feeling like I needed to pour my creative energy into something, but I didn’t know what it was.

With nothing to do in lockdown, I was working at my job constantly—I felt like I had to because the market was so uncertain at the time, and I was covering an industry that was greatly impacted by the pandemic so there was a ton going on, but it was also just something to do. And starting to think about a personal project gave me the boundaries that I needed at work.

One day that fall, the idea hit me, truly it was like a light bulb going off. I was like, why don’t I do what I do for work, which is connecting industries with the resources and knowledge they need to run and improve their businesses, but for vintage and antiques— and then specifically gear it toward this new market we are seeing emerge, which is filled with online-savvy resellers who have embraced a world of change, and their customers.

As a consumer, I’d seen that space grow in the early months of the pandemic. I had a niche, and I knew that niche had a need. There wasn’t much information out there, especially for resellers.

Now, the idea seems so obvious to me, but it took a while to get there. I launched The Vintage Seeker in April 2021 as an Instagram page, website and newsletter and have just had an incredible time getting to know the community online and sparking conversations about the business of resale.

Going back to your original question, it’s important to note, since you’re a fashion seller, that I first came into the secondhand goods industry by way of decor and furniture. I wanted to find things for my apartment that were unique, good quality, and not like what my friends had. Decor and furniture is a great entry point into the vintage world for everyone.

I really only started seriously getting into the clothing and fashion side about four years ago. I’ve been between a straight-size and a plus size, depending on the piece and the cut, for years, and to be honest, while I always appreciated fashion from afar — in fact one of my early career dreams was to work for a fashion magazine, until I actually interviewed at one — I never felt like it was made for people with my body shape or larger.

I didn’t even really bother “trying” to experiment with more fashionable clothes until about five years ago, because the options just didn’t exist at an affordable price point. I look back at what I wore in my 20s and it makes me sad! And I’m talking firsthand retail here, let alone vintage fashion, which has, up until quite recently, been really difficult to access for the plus-size community.

Luckily that has changed a lot lately, with so many more sellers such as yourself offering a size-inclusive selection or even specializing in plus. I work from home so most days I’m doing the Steve Jobs thing and putting on a black t-shirt so I can just get down to work, but when I leave the house I’m still on a learning journey myself, trying to figure out what my style is now that I have more options.

And I know you’re great at helping people identify what their personal style is, Emilie. That’s one of the things I admire most about secondhand fashion sellers — the value add that they provide in helping their customers’ style their clothing. You’re all constantly giving ideas whether through your listing photos or your styling services. I love that you’ve started your newsletter, for example, to give your customers and followers more clothing inspiration, and created a style guide to help them zero in on their personal style. We need more of that.

You've done a lot of research on the state of the secondhand shopping industry. What are some of the key points that have popped up in your research that demonstrate the growth and the current state of our industry?

There are so many. I feel like we are riding a swelling wave right now that is going to end up being a tsunami of secondhand. We had the pandemic of course, which got a lot more people online shopping and discovering vintage and resale. The current 90s and Y2K trends are definitely helping, too.

But climate change is also huge. The need for sustainable manufacturing is huge. Overconsumption is huge. These are big concepts and increasingly, consumers are more and more aware of their impacts.

There’s also the idea of a non-traditional working life that I think has been really attractive to a lot of people over the last couple of years and made them consider selling as an option.

And there’s also a desire for uniqueness, for specific stories, for representation, for individuality. That’s happening on a widespread cultural level, and vintage and resale really allows people to explore that. We are at a really exciting crossroads for the industry, I think.

Just from a macro or anecdotal perspective, I’m seeing more and more about the industry…everywhere. The number of articles being published about secondhand, vintage and resale is increasing, I see that consistently across my Google News services. New online buy and sell marketplaces are opening all the time.

The number of markets with vintage and thrift vendors in my local area in the GTA, and I know in your area in Calgary too, is exponentially higher than it was even two or three years ago. There are more resale apps popping up. Big “firsthand fashion” brands are opening their own buyback programs and resale marketplaces trying to cash in on a market that has largely been dominated by independent resellers.

As for specific growth stats, here are a few. I should note that I don’t have much in terms of Canada specific, and there are still so few surveys and reports being done on resale, though it’s getting better. But one of the most oft-quoted reports is the Resale Report by thredUP, which is a U.S. based retailer of secondhand clothes. People can sign up to consign their clothes through them.

thredUP worked with a retail analytics firm and estimated the worth of the global secondhand apparel market — so that’s just for clothing, not including decor or furniture or anything, to be worth $96 billion in 2021. They expect it to be worth $218 billion in 2026. thredUp saw 73 million total sellers in the U.S. in 2021, and estimates 195 million over the coming years based on the current rate of market growth.

This is huge. The fact that brands are capitalizing on resale — no matter what your thoughts are on that — that means resale is here to stay, and it’s going to be a bigger player as the years go on. You could argue that brands adopting their own resale programs are just giving more visibility to the entire secondhand goods market. That’s a good thing.

We know that shopping secondhand is one of the many actions we can take to help reduce waste in the fashion industry. You've talked to a lot of people in the industry, what are some of the benefits of shopping secondhand? And are there any other actions to consider that align with those benefits?

Shopping secondhand, especially vintage, antiques or even well-made contemporary pieces, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get good-quality pieces. These are garments or objects that have stood the test of time for a reason.

You’re also going to be able to develop a personal style by buying secondhand. Because every product feels like one of one, and in a sense, it is. There aren’t racks of the same item over and over. Buy a few vintage pieces, vary them in era and texture, and you’ll start curating your own style that’s rich in detail and interest. I know as a fashion seller you can offer much more specific advice on this than I can, and you have been doing that through your newsletters.

Price is another one. Obviously depending on what you’re buying, there may be significant value attached to it that makes it more expensive than new. Some streetwear pieces for example are collector’s items now and fetch higher prices. Or an antique designer cabinet may have a high price tag. But for the most part, when you buy secondhand or vintage, you’re getting something at a fraction of its original selling price, or at a fraction of the price if you were to manufacture the equivalent today using raw materials.

Reducing waste, as you mentioned, is of course important. The fashion industry is notorious for its waste — both for its manufacturing processes and for the sheer volume of clothes it produces, especially when we are talking fast fashion.

One of my go-to stats is from the World Economic Forum, which says that the equivalent of one garbage truck filled with clothes is incinerated or dumped in a landfill once per second.

This stuff, once you start to learn about it, is shocking.

What I advocate for is awareness. Awareness eventually leads to action. To making different choices. If every person thought more about what they purchase, whether new or secondhand, we would absolutely have less consumption overall. That’s a start.

Rather than have a few people be all or nothing, I’d rather everyone do something, you know? That’s what makes change — collective action. And I think individual consumers put a lot of pressure on themselves to be the change agents. But that change really needs to be embraced in the manufacturing plants and at the corporate level of retail brands.

So what can we as a vintage buying and selling community do? We can continue to talk to our families, our friends, and the public about the value of vintage and resale. About the value of what a reseller does. I’m a big fan of showing your work. It helps to educate people on what goes into being a seller. You and I both know it’s not about grabbing an item for cheap and marking it up. There’s so much that goes into it — so tell people about it!

If we get more people buying some of their stuff secondhand over the next decade, or get them to think more deeply about what they’re buying, I think that’s a huge win.

That education, in my experience, has to be focused on the positive benefits. People do not want to be shamed for their choices, and they shouldn’t be. The reality is, there are a million and one reasons why someone might choose to or need to buy something new. What we can do is just keep coming together as a community to tout the benefits of secondhand.

The problem I see, really, is awareness — people don’t have easy access to the information. They can’t find your sole-proprietor shop in the Internet ether. Fast fashion makes it extremely easy for them to shop, and it’s crazy difficult to compete with when the first page of Google results is all Amazon and Shein.

People don’t know what they don’t know. It’s the job of the reselling community to keep pushing out there. If you’re an online-based business and you use Instagram as your primary marketing tool, you are reaching a tiny fraction of people.

The Vintage Seeker focuses on supporting small businesses who sell vintage and secondhand clothing and decor. What are some tips and tricks you have for businesses like mine to grow? What are you seeing as the future of reselling?

I’ll start with the future of reselling. What I see is an industry that is a lot more accessible, approachable and inclusive than it used to be. If you’re not familiar with the vintage and antiques world, it can seem very intimidating from the outside. There’s a ton of knowledge and tradition baked right in, so for a consumer or a would-be seller, historically it felt very closed-off. You had to be “in the know” to be a part of it.

Things have changed a ton in recent years. There’s been more info sharing, more sellers in general. And for some who have been doing this a long time, they’ve embraced that change. For others, that change is really hard.

But the one constant in life is that it changes. Adapting to those changes is critical for any business owner, whether it’s in the vintage and antiques world or outside of it. I just think that we are at this really cool moment where community is becoming everything — and whether you’ve been in this biz a long time or not, coming together and sharing your successes and frustrations and supporting each other makes you feel less alone.

If things are changing, let’s focus on solutions, you know? How can we work within this world? How can we advance that inherent love we all share for vintage and secondhand in new ways? The fact that we have these modern-style markets and are reaching entire new generations of people and getting them interested in secondhand? I think that’s amazing.

The sense that I get is a lot of vendors are torn between selling for the love of it — a lot of people are really passionate about their particular area of vintage or resale — and actually trying to make a living, or at least a healthy side income, from it.

And of course, there are always going to be the hobby sellers who are fine selling a few things here and there for fun, and that’s great too. We need those folks. They keep the passion flame stoked for all of us with their wonderful zeal for secondhand, and for the stories that go along with.

As far as business growth goes, I’ll share a couple of quick tips.

The first is to know your audience. Who is your target customer? Speak to them first. I cannot stress this enough. Yes, it’s important to reach new customers on new platforms and all that, but knowing who your target customer is allows you to keep drilling down into your niche.
There is room for everyone in this vintage-selling, reselling community. But you need to find your people — the people who resonate with your style. They’ll be your repeat customers. They’ll be your brand champions. They’re your bread and butter.
Knowing your audience and really diving deep into their likes, dislikes and demographics makes everything else, from content creation to marketing to writing copy for listings, come easier. It sends a very clear message to a customer: this is my brand, and this is what you can expect when you shop here.
The second is to diversify. In everything. There’s been a well-tread conversation happening in the industry about the prices of items at thrift stores right now. If your business is solely reselling from thrift stores, you may have a problem growing, because you’re not going to be able to keep your costs low enough over time.
Find new places to source. Find new places to sell. Find new ways you can bolt on new products or services to your business. Find a way to get into rentals or get connected to the production industry. If you want to be successful, you need to find a way to slowly scale your business and find new revenue streams. They’ll help fill the gaps in the slower selling months.

You are a great example of this Emilie, with MXMLST. You started your brand only a couple of years ago, and you’re now working on set with producers, you’re taking up newsletters and podcasting, and working on a few other projects coming down the pike too.

Keep trying new things and then stick with what works for you and your brand. Diversifying leads to new opportunities.

All of this of course depends on the size of your business and what your specific goals are. And I’m working on a new project that will help provide more dedicated support with that, no matter what stage you’re at.

You have an exciting project coming up! Tell us more about it :)

I do! I just gave a heartfelt kind of sneak peek of it last week on Instagram for my Instagram Story family, and more detailed material will be available on my website at thevintageseeker.ca soon. What I can tell you is that I’m starting a private, sellers-only online group called the Vintage Sellers Community.

It’s a membership program that will connect sellers of vintage, antiques, thrifted and resale goods with one another so they can find support, network, share resources and access expert insight via webinars and events on a variety of topics including business operations, history and product knowledge, sales and merchandising, and more.

I’m incredibly excited about being able to facilitate and moderate such a space in an easy-to-use online platform.

The Vintage Sellers Community is launching in October. There’s a waitlist available at the link in my bio on my Instagram page @the.vintage.seeker as we are looking for our founding members, so if this is something that may interest you, you can sign up to be notified when we go live.

Nothing like this has been created for this industry in Canada as far as I know, so we’re building something cool and fresh and sustainable.

It’s my belief that coming together as a community, sharing information and advice, and providing access to resources that will support your businesses, will only help the industry grow.

I think that together, the secondhand goods industry is stronger, and it’s my hope that we can make some big impacts as a group down the road. I can’t wait.

THANK YOU KRISTINA!