ShowroomPrivé breaks into the second-hand clothing market

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Translated by
Cassidy STEPHENS

Published
Oct 4, 2022

The ShowroomPrivé group is now turning its attention to second hand products by offering its customers solutions to give their unwanted garments a second life. Three partnerships with specialist players are in place and the solutions include reselling or donating to the Emmaüs Label network to finance solidarity projects.

Called "Second Show", this system is supported by Rediv, formerly known as Patatam, which will offer ShowroomPrivé members a "turnkey" solution to parting with their old clothes. The clothes will be collected, sorted and resold by the company itself. And in exchange for their garments, customers will receive vouchers to be spent on ShowroomPrivé. A similar partnership has been established with Easy Cash, which will buy back smartphones, computers, tablets and game consoles from members, to then refurbish them and resell them on its own platform.

Second Show is also partnering with Trëmma, through which members will be able to donate their old clothes, which will be used to fund Emmaus projects. The items will be sorted and some of them will be resold on the Label-Emmaus.com platform, while the proceeds will go to various selected projects.

"Today, many of our members want to recycle their items but do not have the time or the solutions to do so," explained CEO David Dayan. "With Second Show, we offer to support our members in their recycling efforts through our various partnerships. This role as a facilitator is also in line with our long-standing desire to give back purchasing power to our members, as well as our Move Forward corporate programme, whose objective is to encourage accessible and sustainable consumption."

This announcement comes after the launch last June of "Le Village", a permanent sales space dedicated to premium offers. A few months earlier, the company also attracted attention by acquiring the premium fashion specialist The Bradery. On the sales side, the group managed to post 27.3 million euros in profits for the 2021 financial year, after three years of decline, while sales volume rose by 3.1%. As expected, particularly in view of the economic context, 2022 will prove to be more complex, with a 21% contraction in sales in the first half of the year.

In the space of a few seasons, second-hand clothing has become a major component of online fashion sales. This is notably due to the impetus of Lithuanian company Vinted, which is now the third-largest online clothing seller in France. On the other hand, online retailers have to deal with a smaller amount of stock to sell, due to the rationalization of production by the brands. To broaden its scope, the other major French destocker, Veepee, has also turned to end-of-life products, offering to collect products on behalf of brands with Re-Cycle.