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Younger shoppers hunting for handbags, jewelry and apparel are increasingly price-checking the resale market before buying new items to gauge their future potential worth, according to RealReal Inc. CEO Rati Sahi Levesque.
More than 80 percent of the company’s fastest-growing segment — Gen Z and millennials — are scanning the secondary market before buying new items from luxury brands, many of which have raised prices in recent years. Chanel’s flagship Classic Flap bag, for example, has doubled to $11,700 between 2019 and 2026. Louis Vuitton, which has also hiked prices on handbags, ranks among the most-searched brands on the platform.
“We’re seeing a lot of confidence in what they’re spending,” Levesque said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, adding that sales of items costing more than $1,000 have increased in the first half of the year. Unique or limited-edition contemporary items, including clothes from the 1990s, have been a surprising area of growth, she said.
“I think people expect jewelry, watches and vintage,” she said. But as the “big ‘90s resurgence” takes hold, the value of those items have also risen. “The Gen-Z demographic is discovering them for the first time, where I grew up with those items, which always surprises me,” she said.
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The resale market has more than doubled in size since 2021 and is projected to reach $393 billion by 2030, according to ThredUp’s 2026 resale report. RealReal, which operates a marketplace for secondhand luxury goods, raised its full-year 2026 outlook on Aug. 6, anticipating revenue in the range of $788 million to $797 million.
By Marc Davies and Dani Burger
Learn more:
Fashion Brands Are Missing Out on the Resale Opportunity
As secondhand sales soar, brands are finding reselling their own items is an increasingly attractive proposition even as operational hurdles remain, according to the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2026.
