Zara enters resale market with in-house swap and mend service

In a bid to reduce its environmental impact, Zara has said it will help UK shoppers resell, repair or donate clothing bought from its stores.

The new ‘Pre-owned service’ will allow shoppers to book repairs and donate unwanted clothes. It will also reduce the environmental impact of deliveries by allow people to post packages of items that they wish to return.

The service will launch on 3 November, with a new sales platform launching on its website and app.

Sellers will be able to post pictures of their items on the Zara platform and payments will processed through Stripe.

The UK was specifically chosen as a test market for Zara as it said shoppers here “push us to improve and innovate”.

Paula Ampuero, the head of sustainability at Zara, said: “At this stage, this platform is exclusively conceived as a tool to help customers extend the lifetime of their clothing and take a more circular approach.”

It is understood that the initiative will not be profitable to begin with, however it does put the Spanish retail giant alongside rivals like Asos and H&M, which have both tried to push into the resale and refurbishment market.

The global second-hand clothing market is estimated at $71.2bn in 2022, according to a recent Future Market Insights report, with the big hitters including the likes of Vinted and Depop.