What: The secondhand market's next phase of growth depends on industrializing operations through technology, logistics, and trust-driven infrastructure.

Why it is important: Secondhand platforms can no longer differentiate on price and sustainability alone — the operational bar for quality, transparency, and delivery reliability has risen to match new goods retail.

Secondhand commerce has moved past its first phase. The original growth drivers — lower prices, easier resale, more sustainable consumption — are now baseline expectations. At volume, the sector faces a structural challenge unique to its nature: every item is different. Unlike new goods retail, where identical products can be processed in bulk, secondhand operators must identify, assess, price, and list millions of individual items without standardised templates. AI and machine learning are increasingly handling the repetitive work — image recognition, pricing models, warehouse routing — while human teams manage the judgment calls automation cannot. Trust has had to follow the same path: built through quality checks, accurate descriptions, and reliable delivery, embedded in operations rather than stated in marketing. The players pulling ahead are those treating technology and logistics as the core of the model, not an addition to it.

IADS Notes: The secondhand sector's operational shift is already documented across recent industry analyses. Platforms like Vinted and The RealReal reported record revenue and user growth in 2026, driven by digital curation and the mainstreaming of circular economy models . As resale has consolidated as a mainstream retail channel, the operational gap between leading and lagging platforms has widened — with advanced technology now required to manage unique inventories, pricing, and logistics at the volumes consumers expect . AI and machine learning are increasingly handling identification, quality control, and workflow optimisation, while human expertise remains central to product assessment and trust-building . Quality control, transparent descriptions, and reliable delivery have moved from differentiators to entry requirements. Major partnerships — Vestiaire Collective and Zalando among them — and the growth of dedicated circular retail spaces like Sweden's ReTuna mall point to the same structural shift: investment in technology and logistics is now the price of operating credibly in secondhand at volume .

The next challenge for secondhand goods will be industrial