Recommerce, pre-loved, resale, or second-hand goods – whatever synonym one would like to use – is a big focus area for retail.
It has moved from niche to mainstream, according to the fifth annual Recommerce report from online marketplace eBay.
The report, published in November 2025, shows 89% of global consumers surveyed expect to spend the same amount or more on preloved goods in 2025 compared with 2024. With more than 27,000 people surveyed globally, including both eBay sellers and general consumers, it’s a comprehensive study that can be trusted.
A key finding from the report is that recommerce is no longer viewed solely as an alternative way to shop, but as “a conscious lifestyle choice driven by personal values, community connection and financial empowerment”.
As Jamie Iannone, CEO at eBay, says in the report: “Recommerce is redefining how people shop – led by a new generation that values connection, purpose and sustainability.
“Nearly 80% of Gen Z and millennials see themselves as part of this movement, turning their passion for preloved items into real impact.”
Iannone said eBay’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are making it “easier than ever” for people and retailers to resell goods online and give them another life under the ownership of someone new.
And the reference to technology is a pertinent one, because there’s a whole enterprise software market forming to support this ever-burgeoning area of retail.
In 2025 alone, resale platform provider Archive raised $30m in Series B funding, with the cash being used to develop the company’s “resale intelligence software”, drive more global partnerships, and deliver product innovation and services. That was announced last February, and then, in June, Germany-based Brandback revealed it had raised $7.4m across its pre-seed and seed funding rounds to support its growth in the space.
Brandback’s investment is being directed towards enhancing its engineering teams, working on its own AI capabilities, and onboarding more global retailers.
In 2025, Computer Weekly covered mobile apps 2.0, electronic shelf labels, digital receipts and in-store tech to deter criminals as four of the hottest areas of innovation and investment in retail this year, and resale tech can be added to that list.
Digital IDs and one-click listings
Last year – 12 months on from its acquisition of digital ID and authentication platform Certilogo – eBay launched a click-to-resell feature using Certilogo’s connected product smart tags. It means consumers can list their clothing on eBay in a couple of clicks of a button, with the new feature built into Certilogo’s Secure by Design digital ID.
Italian outerwear and lifestyle brand Save The Duck was the first to pilot the feature, which allows sellers to scan a QR code on garments connected with the digital ID labels for instant online listing.
The scan prompts a “resell your garment” button on the item’s digital profile which directs them to check the authenticity of the item through Certilogo’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based ID system by signing in with their eBay account. Once the check is completed, an eBay listing will be pre-filled with information, but sellers can add additional information if they wish to.
In 2023, eBay introduced what it calls its “magical listing tool”, which uses AI to extrapolate details about listings from images, and allows sellers to list items quickly and ensure buyers have comprehensive product information before making a purchase. The marketplace continues to explore new ways of using AI as new strands of the technology evolve.
Tech behind the scenes
The list of resale tech providers is extensive; it’s a crowded market, but it also provides evidence of the consumer demand for buying second-hand items from their favourite brands.
Circular services platform provider Save Your Wardrobe’s co-founder, Hasna Kourda, says “more businesses want to take a chance” when there is huge interest in a market.
Indeed, Amazon-commissioned research by economic forecast group the Centre for Economics Business Research (CEBR) found two-thirds of Brits bought second-hand goods online in 2024. The online second-hand market is expected to be worth £4.8bn in 2025, according to the study, which cited cost-of-living pressures, wider availability of pre-owned products and environmental awareness as driving factors.
US-based Archive is working with companies such as The North Face, Lululemon and New Balance to allow these brands to run their own resale channels, while Treet kickstarted a resale platform partnership with online fashion retailer Oh Polly in May.
Resale as a service (RaaS) is a growth market, and it sits within a wider cohort of circularity platforms aiming to help retailers drive value from recommerce, repair and rental.
One prominent UK player in that space is Motherwell-based ACS Clothing, which calls itself a circular fashion hub and manages the logistics, such as cleaning, storage and transportation, for retailers that offer repairs, rental and resale. It also aligns with tech providers such as Archive when retailers opt to bring in a dedicated RaaS provider.
Andrew Rough, CEO of ACS Clothing, which counts formalwear retailer Moss and Scandi denim brand Nudie Jeans’ fast-growing UK arm among its customers, says the volume of tech partners complicates the market.
“They’re all selling a similar service and, rightly, make out their tech is the best – but this makes it a bit complicated,” he explains, adding that tech partner ACS has worked with in the past have sometimes been guilty of overstating what they offer retailers.
He says retail service providers should never give the impression they can do things they can’t, underlining how ACS does a lot of the behind-the-scenes work to support brands’ front-end recommerce.
Fundamentally, though, Rough thinks retailers that have not already done so need to get into the recommerce space, “otherwise they’ll be left behind”.
“Brands contact us saying they need to do something circular but they don’t know what to do, and I find that odd because they should be meeting the demands of their customers,” he notes.
“They say, ‘We don’t really want to be in resale,’ but the truth is they already are. If you go on eBay or Depop, people are buying the product, but brands and retailers aren’t part of the transaction and they’re missing out on a great opportunity.”
Save Your Wardrobe’s Kourda says her company is unique in its sector, and that the business continues to invest in its tech stack to make its platform as compelling and useful as possible as more companies seek circular services for their customers.
One investment has been an AI damage detector which Kourda says recognises defects and provides “an instant diagnosis before planning next steps for the best repair possible”.
Brands using it introduce their individual policies to the system so they can provide a tailored service to their customers.
“It was in answer to the lack of expertise in retail and shops, where there is a knowledge gap around repairs and warranties,” says Kourda. “The damage detector connected to our mapped-out aftercare services creates an integrated solution to help businesses in an instant, allowing them to direct products to the right category.”
Embedded resale and interconnectivity
ACS integrates into multiple major resale platforms, and in 2025, it invested in and expanded its tech to allow its customers to multi-list on Depop and eBay – and it will soon do the same with luxury marketplace Vestiaire Collective, according to Rough.
“Brands can now simultaneously list the same item on different marketplaces – if bought on one, it’ll be removed automatically from the others,” he notes.
“We have enhanced our own tech capabilities so a brand can come to us directly. The reason why a brand will go to an Archive or one of its peers is because they’ll build a frontend platform, but if a brand wants their items in eBay and Depop, we can do that for them.”
Rough says the likes of eBay and Vinted are actually “driving the cost of second-hand down”.
“We have been able to show when it’s a controlled branded marketplace, the same item can sell for ten times more because people pay more because they are getting authenticity and in some cases warranty – buying off someone you trust rather than not knowing who they are,” he says.
Improving capabilities
That embedded resale is what Berlin-based Brandback touts as the key to success in recommerce, and it has a growing team of engineers working on its proposition to ensure it continues to improve its capabilities. Its software integrates directly into online retailers’ baskets, listings and checkouts, and the company says it enables a “seamless” resale experience for customers while also unlocking new revenue streams for retailers.
For example, Brandback’s software allows its retailer customers to display resale values at checkout, which it says helps boost conversion rates.
It’s a sign there’s a growing number of consumers considering the afterlife of an item before they’ve even bought it new.
Often when it comes to sustainability and technology strategy, retailers will launch things their customers have not necessarily requested. Moves will be made in the name of corporate social responsibility, meeting new legislation, or innovation for innovation’s sake.
Through its recommerce report, eBay is highlighting how consumers truly want more resale options. And according to the marketplace, shoppers are embracing recommerce for both practical and purposeful reasons, “balancing financial motivation with values-driven intent”.
Saving money
Some 81% of consumers cite saving money as one of the key reasons for buying pre-loved goods, with 45% referencing sustainability and environmental benefits.
Intriguingly, 63% of consumers consider themselves part of a “recommerce community”, with that number rising to almost 80% among Gen Z and millennials. For years, online retail has always lagged behind physical retail stores in terms of the interaction and personal relationships it can foster, but with the continued rise of recommerce, this is changing.
All of this bodes well for the tech market in the resale space, which also features software providers such as Trove, Faume and Zeercle, as well as dedicated platforms such as The Little Loop.
Depop and Vinted sit alongside eBay as tech-enabled marketplaces looking to support the growing pre-loved market.
Kourda argues that adding the option of a repair warranty and embedding it alongside resale might help luxury retailers and brands get more from the recommerce space.
“There is still maturity to come in the market – if you add repair you can increase value to the items they sell and help convert a second-hand purchase,” she says.
Room for evolution
There’s certainly room for the recommerce market – and the tech supporting it – to evolve in the 12 months ahead. And it will, according to Rough.
“It’s inevitable there’ll be consolidation in the market,” he argues.
“If you go back to the explosion of the internet and e-commerce – brands began by outsourcing it and got third parties to build websites then they went in-house. Recommerce could go down this route – there’s bound to be consolidation, and brands will want to do it themselves.
“The tech partners are a stepping stone to where retailers and brands will ultimately get to,” says Rough.