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Nica Yusay, a 30-year-old millennial, is one of many designer bag resellers thriving in a rising resale market. Yusay resells her vintage designer bags on her website, ShopFashioNica, and calls her business her “pandemic baby,” she said in an interview with Fortune.
Yusay has been thrifting since she was 14, originally as a cost-saving measure while growing up in a single-parent household in Southern California, she told Fortune. She turned it into a hobby in her early twenties, spending a portion of her corporate salary on secondhand designer bags. She began reselling them at the start of the pandemic and quit her digital marketing job in 2021 to turn the side hustle into her own business.
According to documents reviewed by Fortune, her business is projected to reach $4.5 million in sales by the end of the year. It’s unknown how much she earns, but CNBC reported at the end of 2021 that she made $300,000 from the side hustle that year. When she started out, Yusay said she only sold around five bags per week. Since she quit her job to do it full-time, she sells between 30 to 50 bags a week.
The resale market is booming, thanks to what Fortune describes as the perfect economic storm: Luxury brands scaled back production during the pandemic, even as demand grew. Inflation and increased costs for raw materials, shipping delays and supply shortages created scarcity.
Kelly McSweeney, women’s merchandising manager at luxury consignment marketplace The RealReal, told Fortune that reallocated discretionary income and interest in sustainable fashion and thrifting created a booming market for luxury handbag collectors like Yusay.
Based on data from Business of Fashion Insights, the average retail price for women’s designer bags increased from $1,944 in 2019 to $2,475 in 2022. Prices at Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel reached a new high in 2021 of more than 70% of the manufacturer’s recommended retail price, according to the RealReal’s 2023 Luxury Consignment Report. “Consignors have earned more than ever,” McSweeney told Fortune.
The reselling market isn’t expected to slow down. ThredUp’s 2024 Resale Report estimated that the global secondhand market will reach $350 billion by 2028, driven mostly by the resale market. In 2023, resale grew 15 times faster than the broader retail clothing sector, and online resale saw accelerated growth at 23% year-over-year.
Designer labels typically sell the most easily and quickly, as previously reported by GOBankingRates. Similar to Yusay, you can create your own online business reselling luxury handbags, or you can open a traditional shop or use popular e-commerce platforms, such as Depop, Poshmark and Etsy.
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