Hard hit by tariffs, Americans are turning to Goodwill and eBay

Secondhand shopping can be pretty hit or miss. In the hit scenario, you find a delightfully low-priced treasure and wind up with an item that's cheap, unique, and, if you care, environmentally friendly. In the miss situation, you sift endlessly through items, only to come up empty-handed. Or, worse, you make a 45-minute drive to check out that old but "rust-free" truck you found online, only to discover the seller just painted over the decay.

Luckily, an increasing number of resale transactions are landing in the "hit" column. Companies are working to improve the secondhand shopping experience, especially online. Brands are embracing the resale trend. More consumers are willing to try it, too. In an era when people want their possessions to say something about themselves, and as we constantly cycle through microtrends, thrifting has gone from "ick" to "cool."

Now, in the face of escalating economic uncertainty, secondhand shopping may have even more appeal. There are no tariffs on vintage items. If a recession does hit, more people might find themselves seeking out the lower prices — and raiding their own closets to see if there's anything of value they can put up for sale.

"What secondhand provides is not just a very sustainable and economical way to shop, but once you've bought something, it's a way to monetize it, so you can actually tap into the value of your closet and circulate," Manish Chandra, the founder and CEO of the peer-to-peer secondhand marketplace Poshmark, said. "And those economics have never been stronger than today."

Consumers like deals and discovery. Secondhand shopping is an increasingly popular way to scratch both of those itches.

Resale has been around forever. In the analog world, there have long been garage sales and shops such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army. eBay was one of the first companies to hit it big on the internet, and now, there are loads of resale platforms online, from ThredUp and Poshmark to Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. People have even taken things into their own hands by creating "Buy Nothing" groups. Consumers' love affair with cheap stuff seems limitless, and secondhand is an avenue for it to flourish.

"It's a cousin to the fact that the US consumer perpetually needs a deal," Dylan Carden, an analyst specializing in consumer technology and specialty retail at William Blair, said.

We've seen over the last decade the destigmatization of secondhand.

More recently, there's been a growing acceptance of secondhand among consumers and younger generations in particular. The imagined shopping experience is no longer a dusty, smelly shop on Main Street you begrudgingly go to with your grandmother on a Saturday afternoon. It's a little fun time on the internet where you can find some neat stuff to brag about getting a deal on.

"We've seen over the last decade the destigmatization of secondhand," said Alon Rotem, the chief strategy officer at ThredUp, an online thrift and consignment platform.

A July survey from Morning Consult found that about half of US consumers said they shopped secondhand within the previous three months, and a quarter said they sold something secondhand during the same time period. Clothing and apparel is the most popular category for secondhand commerce, followed by books and games, furniture and home decor, and shoes. Per a recent report from ThredUp and the retail analytics firm GlobalData, the US market for secondhand apparel grew by 14% in 2024, its strongest annual growth since 2021, and is expected to hit $74 billion by 2029.

"There is a trend toward vintage shopping, secondhand shopping, resale thrift hauls, etc., etc., powered by social media trends as well as economic pressure that is driving more consumers to maybe more casually dabble in secondhand," said Claire Tassin, a retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, who added that the segment's growth is thanks to "introducing new people into this market."

Secondhand has a broad appeal. Parents of young children tend to like it since their kids are growing so fast — and don't yet have strong opinions about what they wear. Lower- and middle-income consumers shop secondhand as a way to save money and get access to pricier things they perhaps couldn't afford firsthand. High-end shoppers participate, too, and often prize one-of-a-kind used and vintage items. David Rosenblatt, the CEO of 1stDibs, a luxury e-commerce marketplace, told me that half of their buyers have a household net worth of over $1 million, and their average order value is close to $3,000. 1stDibs' fastest-growing category is jewelry. Secondhand shopping is helping boost a variety of platforms as well: Facebook's Marketplace is so popular it's keeping people on the platform who would otherwise quit. And according to eBay, users globally searched "vintage" over 1,200 times a minute on average in 2024.

The secondhand ecosystem is vast in terms of price points, business models, and appeal.

Hannon Comazzetto, the CEO and founder of AirRobe, a startup that partners with luxury brands to help their customers resell and rent their merchandise after purchase, said her company has been successful in convincing brands that consumers' ability to resell their items will make them buy more in the first place.

The secondhand ecosystem is vast in terms of price points, business models, and appeal. There are online and offline, peer-to-peer and consignment marketplaces. Many big-name brands have broken into secondhand, whether by offloading their returned or used inventory on partner platforms or undertaking endeavors of their own. REI, for example, launched Re/Supply in 2018 for customers to trade in their gear and buy used merchandise. Nick Jendrzejewski, the manager of recommerce at REI, said in an email that 650,000 members used Re/Supply in 2024 alone. "REI has transformed its used gear business from occasional in-store 'garage sales' to a comprehensive recommerce experience,'" he said.

Despite the growing popularity, secondhand selling is not a slam-dunk business. Resale can be challenging logistically and hard to make a profit on. If it's a peer-to-peer model, such as eBay, Facebook Marketplace, or Poshmark, the business is relatively simple in that you're just matching buyer and seller and letting them negotiate among themselves. You're not taking inventory risk, Carden said, "but the problem is you need scale," which can be hard to achieve. If the company owns the inventory, such as ThredUp, The RealReal, and even Goodwill or Savers, it can't control what it gets and whether that will be a match for consumers' interests and trends. Merchandise has to be sorted, stored, and, in some cases, verified. "You get cheap goods, sometimes for $0, but you need to sort through all that stuff," Carden said. "Most of it's going to be relatively useless, and then you have to price it."

Jendrzejewski acknowledged that operating REI's resale business is "challenging." Every item that comes through is one-of-a-kind and requires individual inspection. Unlike with new product lines, they can't forecast and order specific quantities. "This creates natural fluctuations in both product supply and product mix that we work continuously to balance," he said.

It sounds a little odd to say, but the trends that have propelled fast fashion are the same ones that have driven resale growth in recent years. As Chandra, from Poshmark, said, the two categories are "in some ways, tied at the hip."

Consumers are cycling through trends and goods at a faster pace than ever, in large part because of social media. We want things cheap and fast, which is possible thanks to the internet and smartphones that let consumers treat shopping like a low-stakes lottery. People are buying things directly from what they see on Instagram or TikTok. Constantly improving algorithms serve them items they might want, even on secondhand websites and apps themselves. People increasingly say they care about sustainability, but that doesn't mean they shun fast fashion and the likes of Shein and Temu.

"That shows you it really is value is No. 1, because they're finding short-term value in fast fashion, they're finding longer-term value in secondhand, and they're really trying to reconcile those two paradoxical forces," Rotem, from ThredUp, said.

On the seller side of the equation, offloading stuff — including for a potential profit — is getting easier. On Poshmark, people can seamlessly snap pictures of their clothes, upload them, and sell them right away. ThredUp sends clean-out kits for people to box their stuff up, send it back, and get paid. 1stDibs vets and approves all of the roughly 7,000 sellers on its platform, the vast majority of whom are professional sellers, and gives them access to an international group of potential buyers.

Platforms are also leveraging technology — including AI — to make life easier for both sides of the buyer-seller equation. Steve Dool, a senior brand and marketing director at Etsy-owned Depop, said in an email that the company recently announced a partnership aimed at helping sellers edit and improve their photos using AI. (It also removed fees from Depop sellers in the US last year, perhaps a more important boost.) Chandra pointed to Poshmark's "smart list" tool, which generates listing details for sellers. On the buyer end, the RealReal is trying to use AI to identify counterfeits. ThredUp has released an AI tool that lets buyers upload images of looks and search for items with that vibe in its inventory. "It's making discovery easier, more fun, and ultimately bringing it closer to the experience of shopping new, which is one of the more powerful drivers there," Rotem said.

Like basically every part of the business world, the secondhand industry is weighing the impact of President Donald Trump's widespread tariffs, the stock market's downturn, and increasing worries about a recession. Based on my conversations with insiders, it's sort of a mixed bag.

On the one hand, a recession is bad, full stop. It means consumers pull back on spending, especially discretionary, focusing more on wants instead of needs. A lot of what people get on the secondhand market falls into the wants category. Concurrently, a scenario where people are strapped for cash means more might turn to resale to make an extra buck and start looking around their houses seeing what they may be able to sell on eBay or Depop. The result: Demand may fall just as supply goes up.

"It might become more competitive on the seller side for fewer consumers who have the discretionary funds to spend," Tassin said.

Even the luxury market could run into a problem. The stock market is down, which makes wealthy people a little more antsy about their money. "When people feel poorer, they're less likely to buy luxury," Rosenblatt, from 1stDibs, said. Over half of their sales are furniture, and a lot of their success tends to track the luxury housing market.

The introduction of the tariffs may lead to some shifts in consumer behavior as consumers become more price conscious and look to other retail options like resale.

On the other hand, tariffs aren't a terrible deal for America's secondhand market. With limited exceptions, what people buy secondhand is already here. Shopping for used items may be a way to avoid tariffs and the inflationary pressures they may cause. Per the ThredUp and GlobalData report, 59% of consumers said they'll seek out more affordable options, including secondhand goods, if tariffs make new apparel more expensive.

"The introduction of the tariffs may lead to some shifts in consumer behavior as consumers become more price conscious and look to other retail options like resale," Dool said.

A more aggressive US trade policy may also give secondhand sellers a win in their war against fast-fashion competitors. In May, Trump is set to close a tax loophole that allows importers to avoid paying duties and taxes on shipments worth less than $800, known as the "de minimis" exemption, which is an important factor in how companies such as Shein and Temu are able to offer such low prices. "We think that that is an unfair advantage for fast fashion," Rotem said, adding that ThredUp has lobbied for the loophole to be closed.

Tassin said the tariffs could lead to a "potential boom" for secondhand shopping, given how much new clothing is imported to the US. She's a secondhand aficionado, and she's already started to notice tariff-related advertising from some of the sellers and platforms she follows letting customers know they won't be affected.

Still, none of the resellers I spoke to for this story were especially jazzed about the prospect of tariffs. As much as they're relatively insulated from import taxes, specifically, they're not immune to the potential economic harm they may cause. The economy gets bad enough, and people close their wallets on every front they can.

I should confess that I'm not a secondhand shopper. Don't get me wrong, I love a thrift store, but I refuse to shop at the ones in New York City because they are wildly overpriced. I've tried some of the online platforms, but the experience is just too hard. I get overwhelmed by all the options, and eventually, I get bored. I would rather not buy anything and repeat an outfit for the 20th time than spend two hours digging through various resale websites to find a dress for an event I'd rather skip in the first place. I can't imagine much of what I own is nice enough to sell. And even if it is, I'm not sure it's worth the energy.

The resale industry is betting that people like me will become converts, just like millions of consumers before. We'll get a taste for it after finding a real steal of a deal, or spend enough time scrolling that we finally click to buy. And then we'll buy again and again. And then, eventually, we'll start selling. And then we all join the circular economy or become part of the giant American yard sale. Maybe it's because we care about the environment. Maybe it's because that new-old chair really is a great find. Maybe it's because, in terms of price, used is often the best deal you're going to find.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.