Chapter 4 — full chapter
4.4 P2P models, resale and trust-based marketing
Person-to-person models include resale, rental, exchange, lending, or sharing between users. By keeping existing products in circulation and increasing their use, these models can reduce demand for new production and avoid some of the material, energy and emissions impacts associated with manufacturing a new garment. This environmental benefit is strongest when accessing a pre-owned, rented or shared item genuinely replaces the purchase of a new product rather than enabling additional consumption.
For brands and designers, these models can also create business value. Resale, rental and other access-based models can extend the commercial relationship with a product beyond its first sale, open new revenue or service opportunities, strengthen customer retention and differentiate the brand through quality, longevity and after-sales engagement. They can also provide insights into how products perform over time, which categories retain value and what customers are willing to recirculate.
These models depend heavily on communication because trust is central to participation. In P2P environments, people need confidence in the product, the seller, the platform, and the transaction. Trust can be built through clear photography, accurate condition grading, size and fit information, authentication, seller ratings, return policies, transparent pricing, reviews and secure payment systems.
P2P models can also shift cultural perceptions by making second-hand fashion feel desirable, normal, and socially accepted. However, they can reproduce fast-fashion behaviours if lower prices, rapid turnover or the ease of resale encourage people to acquire more products or replace them more frequently.
Communication should therefore present resale, rental and exchange not only as circular alternatives to buying new, but as credible and desirable ways of accessing value. For brands, this means communicating quality, longevity, retained value, trust and service — while avoiding incentives that simply reproduce high-frequency consumption in a different format.
RESOURCE INSIGHT: State of Fashion 2025 — Consumer Behaviour and Value — BoF & McKinsey, 2025. Value-seeking is reshaping demand: 64% of US shoppers traded down in Q3 2024, and over 70% plan to keep buying from outlets and off-price channels. Resale grew 15 times faster than the broader apparel market in 2023 and is projected to reach US$350 billion by 2028. Circular models must therefore compete on value and trust — not ethics alone. Source: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/series/the-state-of-fashion-2025-report-consumer-behaviour-value-shopping-resale/
GFA RESOURCE: Fashion CEO Agenda 2025 — Global Fashion Agenda, 2025. Consumer behaviour is shifting: the US second-hand market grew 14% in 2024 — five times the rate of the broader retail clothing market — and the global second-hand apparel market is projected to reach USD 367 billion. The CEO Agenda encourages brands to increase the share of consumer marketing messages promoting circular business models over traditional ones. For SMEs, framing resale around value, longevity and quality, not novelty, captures this demand responsibly. Source:
Source: https://globalfashionagenda.org/resource/fashion-ceo-agenda-2025/