What is the United States market-size (TAM) for the Resale / Consignment industry?

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What is the United States market-size (TAM) for the Resale / Consignment industry?

Hi! Thank you for your question about the United States market-size (TAM) for the Resale / Consignment industry.

In short, the total market size of the consignment/resale industry in the US is $70.52 billion at least with expectation for it to grow. The major companies are Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Savers, and Winmark however, a lot of peer to peer transaction take place on eBay and Craigslist. The industry comprises of various products with clothing being the largest (49%). I have provided a deep dive of my findings below.

CONSIGNMENT/RESALE INDUSTRY

The US Consignment/Resale Industry is composed of the resale industry across multiple sectors. Since a single TAM is not available, we can calculate the same for calculating the individual sector’s resale/consignment industry.

Clothing reselling is a $16 billion industry. The used merchandise stores industry totals around 20,000 stores with a combined annual revenue of $17 billion. The online consignment industry is estimated to be a $34 billion industry with an expectation of 10% growth. Sneakers secondary market is worth $1 billion fueled by the excitement created by the intentionally low supply of new sneaker releases. The used smartphone market is worth $2.52 billion – 15.2 million used smartphones were shipped in 2015 at an average price of $136. Adding these gives a total market size of the resale/consignment industry as $16 billion + $17 billion + $1 billion + $34 billion + $2.52 billion = $70.52 billion (conservative estimate). The online consignment stores are expected to see explosive growth with 600% sales growth for the market leaders. This may be partly fueled by the concern for the environment (52% respondents cite it as a reason to shop second hand). Just the apparel related market is expected to grow to $33 billion by 2021. The taboo of selling old stuff is vanishing. Currently, the composition of the related industry is 49% for clothing, shoes and accessories, 16% for others, 14% for books, 11% for media and 10% for electronics.

In terms of resources for the industry, NARTS is an organization that works to encourage, support and improves the resale industry as a whole. Kate Holmes of Too Good to be Threw publishes a regular blog for consignment and resale shops. She has written publications covering operations manual to merchandising and selling. ThethriftShopper.com offers a thrift industry forum to share ideas and offer advertising opportunities. Traxia is another blog that educates and intends to expand resale as a whole.

In terms of trends, millennials and grandmothers are most likely to shop second hand. Millennials are likely to shop second hand in the future (30% have shopped second hand in the past year). Thrift shoppers are distributed according to income as 10% millionaires, 36% with $250K-$1M income, 21% with $100K-$250K income, 10% with $50K-$100K income and 23% with less than $50K income.

Major US resale/consignment companies include Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Savers, and Winmark. Online platforms like eBay and Craigslist have driven the online resale industry where peer to peer type transactions occur eliminating any type of middlemen when selling ones used goods.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, the total market size of the consignment/resale industry in the US is $70.52 billion at least with expectation for it to grow. The major companies are Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Savers, and Winmark however, a lot of peer to peer transaction take place on eBay and Craigslist. The industry comprises of various products with clothing being the largest (49%).

I hope the research is useful. Thank you for using Wonder. Please let us know if we can help with anything else!

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