Online Resale Jumped 23% In 2024, With AI Tools Driving Growth
A record number of Americans bought secondhand apparel in 2024, and more than half of those shoppers made a purchase online, according to the 2025 ThredUp Resale report.
ThredUp, an online resale platform for women's and children's clothing, shoes and accessories, has been tracking the evolution of the resale market since 2013, with an annual report. While each report has shown steady growth in consumer acceptance of, and demand for, secondhand apparel, this year's report, ThredUp's 13th, signals that resale is positioned for a period of accelerated growth.
AI tools ThredUp, and other resale platforms, began using in 2024 are making it as easy to search and shop online for secondhand apparel as it is to shop for new merchandise. The growing integration of social commerce and resale, along with price concerns triggered by tariff policies also are expected to boost secondhand sales.
The U.S. secondhand apparel market grew by 14% last year - its strongest annual growth since 2021, and five times the growth rate of the overall apparel market, ThredUp said in its report, which is based on research by GlobalData, including surveys of consumers and retail executives.
U.S. online resale had even more dramatic growth in 2024, up 23%. Online resale is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 13% over the next five years, and double, to reach $40 billion by 2029, according to the report.
Globally, the secondhand apparel market is expected to reach $367 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 10%, according to the ThredUp report.
In 2024, 58% of shoppers bought secondhand, up from 52% in 2023, which was the first time in the history of ThredUp reports that secondhand shoppers exceeded 50%.
An even greater percentage of younger shoppers - 68% of millennials and Gen Z - said they shopped secondhand in 2024.
Of those younger shoppers, 48% said secondhand is the first option they look for when they shop for apparel, up 7 points over the previous year.
'It's kind of wild to think that in the younger generations, it's not just that they're shopping secondhand, but that it's the first place they're going,' Alon Rotem. Chief Strategy Officer at ThredUp, said in an interview. The shift in acceptance of secondhand apparel is happening broadly, 'but it's happening even more pointedly with the younger generations,' he said.
Rotem said a number of factors are driving growth in resale, among the most significant of which are artifical intelligence tools that make it easier for consumers to more easily shift through all of the online secondhand offerings and find exactly what they are looking for.
'You have shopping innovations that make it easier to shop secondhand, so it feels more like shopping new,' he said.
Three new ways ThredUp has been leveraging AI over the past year are with enhanced image search, style chat, and improved response to written search requests, Rotem said,
Image search allows shoppers to search for a secondhand item using a picture they uploaded from the internet, or that they took of something they saw on the street, and match it to ThredUp's inventory.
Style chat, Rotem said, functions as an AI style expert that can help a customer put together complete outfits.
ThredUp CEO James Reinhart, in an interview last August, called the recently launched AI tools the 'most compelling product' in the history of the company, and game-changer for ThredUp.
In ThredUp's fourth quarter earnings call with investors March 1, Reinhart said 'We continue to believe that AI disproportionately benefits ThredUp relative to other marketplaces and retailers, and that generative AI can significantly enhance the secondhand shopping experience.'
Reinhart also said on the call that ThredUp launched automated digital measurements during the quarter, which will improve the shopping experience for customers and result in improved conversion, lower returns and increased customer retention.
The AI advances in the resale industry are mirroring the rapid adoption of AI across the retail universe.
Consumers also are showing broad acceptance of AI shopping tools. with Adobe reporting earlier this month that AI-driven traffic to U.S. ecommerce websites has been doubling every two months since September.
Social commerce also is driving secondhand growth, Rotem said.
'It's the fastest growing way people are shopping online,' he said, and consumers are sharing videos about their secondhand finds and celebrating the fact that they found a great secondhand item. 'All of those things are normalizing secondhand resale and driving and contributing to that growth,' he said.
According to the ThredUp report, 39% of younger generation shoppers made a secondhand purchase on a social commerce platform over the past 12 months. Of those, 62% made a purchase on TikTok or TikTok Shop.
Executives from the top 50 fashion and retail brands were surveyed for the report, and 38% said they currently allow customers to shop secondhand through a social commerce platform. Another 48% said they are considering integrating social commerce in the future.
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