Squeezed by inflation, Korean shoppers flock to secondhand fashion apps 

Kang Jin-woo, a 39-year-old office worker praised by his friends for his fashion sense, has almost stopped buying clothes and shoes outright. Rates on his 500 million won ($337,000) mortgage have climbed, his interest payments have risen, and his grocery bill has followed suit.

Instead, he buys what he wants secondhand.

"When your salary stays the same, but your fixed expenses continue to climb, you can't starve, so the first thing you start spending less on is fashion," Kang said. "Still, the things I absolutely want, I buy on secondhand market apps, wear them and resell them."

Kang is not an outlier. Higher prices have pushed Korean fashion spending toward the resale sector, and the platforms handling it are posting record volumes. What was once peer-to-peer trading between strangers is being industrialized by conglomerates and department stores that inspect, clean and resell at scale.

The global secondhand apparel market reached $257 billion last year and is forecast to hit $393 billion by 2030, roughly a tenth of all global apparel spending, according to ThredUp's 2026 Resale Report, compiled with GlobalData. The market stood at about $141 billion in 2021. Sales of new clothing are expected to grow just 2 to 3 percent over the same period.

Mckinsey has attributed the shift to affordability. Shoppers facing sustained price increases have grown more deliberate about what they pay, the consultancy said. Brands themselves have moved in with trade-in programs and their own resale platforms, and Mckinsey describes resale as settling into place as a core business infrastructure rather than a side experiment.

Buying used once carried a stigma in Korea, shorthand for wearing something a stranger had worn first. Among younger shoppers, the practice has shifted toward a more value-oriented proposition: the taste you want at a price you can defend. Condition helps, since much of what circulates is close to new, and so does the knowledge that the item can be resold.

What moves fastest is what holds value. Luxury goods, designer labels, vintage and limited editions dominate the listings.

Bunjang has become the destination for teenagers and shoppers in their 20s. Designer clothing and sneakers from labels such as Stüssy, Diesel, Salomon and Mschf move briskly there. The platform's monthly transaction value hit 91.5 billion won in March, a record. Trenbe, a luxury resale platform, said its first-quarter transaction value rose more than 50 percent from a year earlier.

Musinsa Used, the resale arm of the fashion platform Musinsa, has seen its transaction value rise tenfold over the past 10 months since its launch last August. The supply side moved faster than the demand side. Seller numbers rose 30-fold over the same period, and listings increased 6.7 times.

"Interest in value-driven consumption and secondhand fashion has grown, particularly among shoppers in their twenties and thirties," a Musinsa source said. "Users with a wide range of tastes are creating a cycle in which supply and demand feed each other."

The conglomerates are selling a solution to the two problems that have always dogged peer-to-peer resale: counterfeits and hygiene.

Kolon FnC runs OLO Relay Market, a resale platform for its own labels. Customers request pickups of used items from brands such as Kolon Sport and Lucky Chouette, and Kolon collects and inspects them, then issues points toward new purchases. The company cleans and repairs what it takes in and resells it at 60 to 70 percent of the original price. Since February, it has also accepted used items from more than 160 outside brands.

Department stores have followed. Hyundai Department Store has given over an entire floor of its Sinchon branch in western Seoul to Second Boutique, which cleans and sterilizes mostly vintage secondhand clothing before selling it. Bring in used clothes, and the store issues points toward new ones.

The economics are less about the resale margin than about what the loop does to customer behavior.

"They are building a cycle that runs from purchase to use to sale to credit and back to purchase," an industry source said. "The aim is a lock-in effect that drives traffic to their own channels and repeat buying."

The pattern looks set to hold. In a survey of more than 27,000 consumers and sellers, eBay found that nine in 10 intended to keep buying secondhand, with 42 percent planning to spend more and 47 percent expecting to spend about the same.

Cost was the leading reason for buying used, cited by 81 percent of respondents, who could select more than one answer. Hunting for rare items ranked at 37 percent, followed by looking for something distinctive at 36 percent.

"Recommerce is redefining how people shop — led by a new generation that values connection, purpose and sustainability," Jamie Iannone, eBay's CEO, said in the company's 2025 Recommerce Report. "[W]ith new AI tools, it’s now easier than ever to give great products a second life and build a more sustainable future."

BY CHOI HYUN-JU [[email protected]]