This holiday season, most of the Christmas presents Akil McLeod buys for his family members will have already belonged to someone else.
It's a shopping habit that McLeod, who turns 30 on Christmas Day, has been practicing for nearly a decade. Last year, he gave his wife a green leather jacket that he bought at a garage sale and it fits like a glove. Once, he shocked his mom with a vintage Gucci purse.
"She's been getting those really unique gifts from me and it's something that you wouldn't find at a Macy's," said McLeod, a former educator who now works full time reselling items on sites like eBay and Poshmark from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. Of the $100 he plans to spend this season on personal gifts, he estimates 70% will be from secondhand stores, where he says he snags better deals, plus the thrill of the hunt. "Vintage is probably the biggest that it's ever been," he said.
McLeod is part of a growing group of consumers who feel comfortable incorporating secondhand items into their holiday shopping lists.
Once taboo, the preowned market is increasingly seen as a savvy way for shoppers to save money, discover harder-to-find items and reduce their carbon footprint in an age of disposable fashion. Buying secondhand isn't necessarily the same as committing the unthinkable act of regifting -- a term popularized in a 1995 episode of Seinfeld as an unwanted label maker gets passed person to person. In fact, nearly half of U.S. consumers said they would consider giving used apparel as a present this year, according to a study from Accenture. Even more would welcome gifts from the resale market themselves.
"Things are changing, especially among young people who try to be sustainable and want to be part of the circular economy," said Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Those are the ones that are not only going to be purchasing this stuff but going to feel good about buying it as gifts -- and introducing friends and family to those brands as well."
Resale has been growing rapidly across the U.S., with the secondhand market forecast to grow to $51 billion by 2023, according to an estimate by online thrift store ThredUp. Given that growth, resale businesses are preparing for what could be their biggest holiday season yet, especially as Americans rev up to spend more than they did last holiday season.
But it's not just yard sales and corner shops. Even before the holidays, 2019 has been a landmark year for secondhand sellers, especially as the local thrift shop goes corporate. Neiman Marcus this spring invested in Fashionphile, a pre-owned e-commerce company focused on luxury handbags and accessories. Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. both announced in August partnerships with ThredUp. Luxury consignment shop RealReal Inc. went public in a $300 million offering in June. In addition, venture capital investors have pumped more than $1.1 billion of funding into used-clothing operations over the past several years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
As Black Friday and Christmas approach, resellers are betting the former stigma of giving used goods has fully fizzled. And it's more than vintage T-shirts and discount items that might find their way into your stocking.
"Now people are like 'buy me the Gucci on Poshmark,'" said Manish Chandra, founder of the resale site. After seeing more users turning to resale for holiday shopping, it debuted a "gifts market" last year, he said.
Younger consumers are some of the most fervent shoppers latching on to the resale trend. Eighty percent of Gen Z shoppers -- the cohort behind millennials that spans about first grade through college -- said they plan to give used gifts, according to a survey released Thursday from ThredUp. Instead of physical items, some people are even handing out gift cards to thrift shops. Gift card purchases at Thrilling, an e-commerce site that helps mom-and-pop vintage shops expand their digital presence, have risen 200% year on year -- and the average balance is $150, according to founder Shilla Kim-Parker.
Grayson Townsend, a 15-year-old from Port Orchard, Wash., spent a recent afternoon while vacationing in New York shopping at Buffalo Exchange, a buyer and seller of used clothing that's been around since the 1970s. She said she didn't mind giving previously owned gifts to her twin sister and friends. If you go to a traditional retail store, someone's probably already tried on that pair of jeans, she said, and shoppers aren't grossed out by that. So what's the difference?
"I can't afford Banana Republic or other expensive clothes, but if I buy secondhand, I can buy more stuff and make their presents better," Townsend said. "There's something called a washing machine."
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Townsend and Sarah Halzack of Bloomberg News.
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