Luxury Brand Net-a-Porter Steps Into Resale Market

The online luxury fashion brand Net-a-Porter has entered the resale fashion market, Green Queen reported.

The company is working with the B2B secondhand market technology provider Reflaunt on a service that lets customers resell designer goods, according to the report.

The project will ultimately cover all Net-a-Porter’s platforms, including Mr Porter and The Outnet, and marks the company’s first major effort at entering the resale sector, the report stated. Net-a-Porter will launch the service first, adding it to its other companies later next year.

Net-a-Porter will collect customers’ items from their homes or pick them up at drop-offs, then handle everything from photographing the products to listing to pricing, according to the report. Customers just need to pick how they’ll get paid once their products sell: bank transfer or Net-a-Porter store credit.

Secondhand platforms are growing, the report stated. Pre-owned fashion platform Vestiaire, for example, hit a valuation of $1.7 billion in September following a fundraising round that included $209 million from SoftBank’s private equity arm SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Read more: SoftBank Jumps Into Secondhand Market With Vestiaire Collective Investment

“More than ever, our customers are looking for fashion that is not only designed to last, but for ways in which it can go on to be re-loved,” said Net-a-Porter President of Luxury and Fashion, Alison Loehnis in the report. “We are thrilled to partner with Reflaunt and offer our customers an effortless service that allows them to resell their designer pieces with ease. We see re-commerce as a true enabler to tap into greater product longevity.”

Reflaunt CEO and Co-Founder Stephanie Crespin said in the report that the adoption of resale by brands like Net-a-Porter shows the pressure consumers are placing on the industry.

She called resale a “critical element” for fashion businesses’ offerings, per the report, and said it is “greatly encouraging to see one of the global leaders in fashion eCommerce take this positive step forward into the circular fashion economy with us.”