In today’s market, resale and retail are no longer fighting for attention — they’re combining forces. For modern retailers, especially those navigating thinning margins and rising acquisition costs, the smartest growth strategy is one that keeps customers coming back. And increasingly, that means letting products come back too.
The rise of the resale industry isn’t a side effect of economic hardship — it’s a response to changing consumer behavior. People now expect to purchase items that retain value, not just deliver utility. They expect retail stores and brands to offer more than new inventory — they want quality, convenience, and a clear path to shop, resell, or trade as their needs evolve.
This shift is especially pronounced in apparel stores, where the global secondhand apparel market is expected to grow to $325 billion by 2031. But it extends beyond clothing into sports gear, furniture, electronics, and more. And while major department stores and factory outlet malls are still competing on retail prices, innovative companies are realizing that the real difference lies in retention, not discounting.
At TWICE, we call this behavior the Loyalty Loop. It’s not a formal framework. It’s just what happens when customers buy, use, resell, and then shop again — all within the same ecosystem. It’s how smart retailers lower acquisition costs, increase sales, and build longer-lasting relationships with buyers who come back because they benefit every time they do.
In this article, we’ll show how to integrate the resale model into your retail operation — not as a novelty, but as a structural lever for growth. We’ll cover real industry trends, explore operational models that work, and break down how platforms like TWICE make it easy to connect resale, rentals, and new sales in one smooth loop.
The retail industry isn’t short on customers. It’s short on repeat customers. While apparel stores, department stores, and factory outlet malls may drive strong seasonal sales, their struggle is long-term: getting consumers to come back without slashing the selling price every quarter.
The traditional retail model has relied on a pipeline approach: push new inventory out, move units fast, repeat. But this model is cracking under pressure. Retail prices are constantly squeezed by fast-fashion players and global online platforms offering ever-lower discounts. Wholesalers and brands find themselves trapped in a volume game, fighting to stand out in a saturated market where convenience and price often win over loyalty.
The problem? If your only lever is price, your only customer is the one looking to save money.
This isn’t just bad for margins — it’s dangerous for your brand. Frequent discounting trains buyers to expect lower prices and erodes long-term trust in your style, quality, and value. And when consumers see no reason to return, when their only relationship with your store is transactional, you’ve lost the one thing money can’t buy: retention.
Even brands with strong product appeal are feeling the heat. Overproduction and oversupply have flooded the market with cheap goods, often driven by low-cost categories like fast fashion and disposable accessories. Online retailers, leveraging scale and automation, have made it possible to buy and resell clothing faster than most brands can track inventory.
To stand out, retailers need a structural shift, not a seasonal campaign.
That shift is recommerce. Not as a trend or niche offering, but as a built-in feature of your retail store experience. When your customers can purchase, use, and trade in products — all within the same brand — you’re no longer just selling items. You’re building a cycle of engagement.
And that cycle is what modern businesses need to survive the noise.
For most retailers, retention is an expensive guessing game: personalized emails, loyalty apps, SMS reminders — all aimed at getting a one-time customer to come back. But what if your products themselves were the engine of return?
That’s the power of resale.
When customers know they can resell or trade in what they’ve bought, especially at the original retail store, you’ve created a reason for them to re-engage. You’re not relying on discounts or gimmicks. You’re giving them something better: value recovery. They didn’t just purchase an item—they invested in something that keeps giving back.
This isn’t hypothetical. In markets like apparel, sports, and electronics, resale programs consistently outperform traditional retention efforts in both margin and loyalty. Trade-in credit works like preloaded store currency. It keeps buyers in your ecosystem and increases the likelihood they’ll make a second purchase with you instead of going elsewhere.
It also gives you something traditional loyalty gimmicks lack: context.
When you run your own resale store or integrate resale shopping into your online experience, you get access to a rich stream of data — what customers return, how long they keep it, what condition it's in. This insight is pure gold for optimizing inventory, refining styles, and improving product quality. It’s not just transactions — it’s feedback at scale.
And the economics are unmatched.
Most importantly, you get to maintain brand control, even after the original sale. Instead of letting third-party platforms dictate how your products are displayed, priced, and resold, your business owns the entire experience. That’s critical in categories where quality, trust, and authenticity drive sales.
In other words, resale isn’t a marketing tool — it’s a full-blown retention strategy. And it works because it starts where loyalty actually lives: in the product, in the experience, and in the ease of returning, not just to the item, but to the brand.
Forget the funnel. Modern retail doesn’t end at checkout — it begins there.
In traditional retail, the customer journey is linear: purchase, use, forget, dispose. If you're lucky, the buyer comes back on their own. But with resale, you're not relying on luck. You're creating a deliberate loop — a flow that keeps customers returning not because they’re marketed to, but because the system is built for it.
Here’s how it works:
Every loop increases lifetime value. Every resale event gives you better inventory insight. Every trade-in increases brand equity by showing that your products are worth something even after the first owner is done.
This is what factory outlet malls and traditional retail stores can’t easily replicate: a loop that captures repeat behavior by design. It's smarter than relying on discounts or last-minute promotions — and it aligns perfectly with how modern consumers think: get value, keep control, and make their money go further.
It also makes your products — and your brand — stickier. If your buyers know they can return to you for resale or lower-priced pre-owned options, they're less likely to go price-hunting elsewhere. You’re not just a place they shop. You’re where they manage the lifecycle of what they own.
And that’s what today’s market rewards: convenience, ownership, and circularity.
Here’s what most retailers get wrong: they think resale cuts into profits. In reality, it expands them.
When you launch a resale program, you're not just adding another sales channel — you’re reclaiming margin you already paid for. The customer has been acquired. The product has been manufactured, shipped, stored, and (hopefully) loved. But when it's no longer needed, it still holds value. If you can bring it back into your ecosystem and resell it, that second sale is high-margin revenue, without the full weight of original overhead.
Let’s break that down.
When you accept that item back, inspect it, and resell it via your own platform, the cost to reprocess it is a fraction of starting from scratch. You avoid the discount game, keep full control over selling prices, and extend the product's revenue potential across multiple cycles.
Meanwhile, your customer gets value back — whether as store credit, a partial refund, or a trade-in bonus. They save money on their next purchase, and your brand earns something even more valuable than margin: another visit, another chance to sell, and another data point for what’s actually working in your inventory strategy.
That’s the key difference — with resale, your product isn’t gone. It’s on repeat.
Platforms like TWICE even enable dynamic resale pricing rules, based on product condition, time since first purchase, or category-specific value retention. This makes resale not just sustainable, but predictable—a lever you can pull when needed, without blowing up your unit economics.
And let’s not ignore the marketing upside. Trade-in programs act as built-in promotions. They’re more compelling than coupons and more sustainable than ad spend. When a customer comes in to return a product and walks out with another one, you didn’t just complete a transaction — you completed a loop.
That’s how you build a business that doesn’t need to shout over the noise. It just works smarter.
Resale isn’t limited to vintage boutiques or peer-to-peer platforms. Today, some of the most forward-thinking retailers — from apparel stores to sports equipment brands — are integrating resale directly into their core operations. And it’s working. Let’s break down where resale and retail converge to create powerful, loyalty-driving loops.
Clothing is where the resale market has exploded. Customers want style, but they also want to save money, minimize their environmental impact, and keep their wardrobes fresh. Branded resale programs allow customers to return worn pieces in exchange for store credit, feeding a curated pre-owned section that retains full brand control.
Think: a denim brand that accepts jeans with wear and tear, repairs them, and resells them with a story—not a markdown. Customers come back because they trust the process, the quality, and the value.
Outdoor and sports retailers deal with gear that’s seasonal and whose demand is influenced by external factors more than in other industries. One winter with little snow can cause a sports store that has stocked up on skis to suffer huge losses. A global pandemic could disrupt supply chains so completely that bicycle retailers would have to spend years clearing pent-up demand.
Sharon Poulter, Commercial Manager from Decathlon UK, highlights the importance of additional revenue streams when things get uncertain. In their case it was rentals, but resale can provide similar cover from market disruptions.
If we had had rentals, it would have provided a business revenue during a time when things weren’t available to sell - which is why, amongst other things as well, I think renting will sit very well with the existing retail model.
By running rental-to-resale loops — renting first, then offering used gear for purchase — brands can maximize the lifespan of each item while giving customers more accessible price points.
A retail store offering used hiking packs or refurbished snowboards at lower prices is catering to both new adventurers and sustainability-minded shoppers. The resale path also helps retailers move seasonal inventory efficiently without jumping straight to discounts.
Major department stores and electronics companies are increasingly exploring certified pre-owned programs — and for good reason. People want to resell their old tech and purchase refurbished devices without gambling on anonymous online platforms.
The key here is trust. Customers are willing to pay a premium to buy a refurbished device directly from the original retailer, especially when it comes with guarantees, upgrades, or bundled accessories. And brands keep their devices — and their customers — out of third-party ecosystems.
Larger, high-ticket items like cookware, furniture, and home decor offer immense resale potential, especially when backed by warranties or known quality. A cast-iron pan that lasts decades? That’s an item customers are proud to resell or gift forward.
Smart retailers are offering end-of-life trade-ins, in-store credits, and even white-glove pickup services. This kind of resale strategy transforms bulky goods into value centers, while helping consumers declutter without guilt.
In each category, TWICE enables retailers to:
Resale isn’t just a trend. It’s a structural opportunity to recapture margin, boost loyalty, and realize value from products more than once.
Resale sounds simple in theory until you try to run it at scale. Managing inventory, tracking product quality, assigning selling prices, and syncing all of it across online platforms and retail stores? That’s where most businesses hit a wall.
TWICE is built specifically to remove those barriers. It’s not just another commerce tool. It’s a purpose-built platform that connects resale and retail seamlessly, efficiently, and at scale.
Here’s how it works:
With TWICE, every item has its own record. From the moment it’s sold or rented to the moment it’s returned, traded in, or resold, the system tracks:
This is called serialized item management — critical for retailers who care about product quality and value recovery.
TWICE lets customers rent, buy, subscribe, or trade in within a single cart and unified account. Whether they’re picking up an item in-store or browsing pre-owned goods online, the experience stays consistent. This cross-channel cohesion is what today’s buyers expect, and what most legacy systems can’t handle.
You don’t need to manually reprice secondhand items. TWICE lets you:
You can even run clearance programs without devaluing your mainline goods—because every channel can carry its own pricing logic.
TWICE gives you actionable insights into:
This isn’t fluff reporting. It’s the operational intelligence you need to optimize sales, reduce waste, and build long-term loyalty.
Most commerce tools were built for a world where you sell something and never see it again. TWICE was built for a world where products return, value is reused, and relationships continue.
It’s how modern companies connect sustainable practices with profitable operations. And it's how you make resale and retail work together—not in parallel, but as one unified model.
You don’t need a massive overhaul to make resale and retail work together. The most successful circular strategies don’t start big — they start focused. One product line. One category. One store. That’s all it takes to begin building your own Loyalty Loop.
Here’s how to get started:
Start by identifying which items in your inventory hold post-purchase value. Look for:
These are the products that make sense to resell, and where your retail store can create an immediate trade-in or refurbishment offer.
You don’t have to guess at the selling price or value of used goods. With the right software, you can set smart pricing rules or offer fixed store credit based on condition, category, or seasonality.
Your options:
The goal? Give customers a reason to come back — and a reason to bring their old items with them.
Your front-line employees are key to making resale succeed. Make sure they understand:
This isn’t about just processing returns. It’s about strengthening customer relationships.
Run your first resale loop in one channel: online, in a single retail store, or for one product category. Use TWICE to track:
Set clear goals: Are you looking to reduce overstock? Extend product lifecycles? Improve retention? Your first loop should help you prove that resale doesn’t just support your business but makes it stronger.
This isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about building a smarter way to operate. Start small, stay lean, and scale based on what the data tells you, not what the press says.
TWICE helps you manage the expansion when you’re ready, whether that means adding new categories, syncing more stores, or automating resale transactions across borders.
Traditional loyalty programs try to keep customers by offering points. Circular businesses keep customers by offering purpose. Letting buyers return, resell, and repurchase turns every product into a relationship, and every retailer into a brand that lasts.
The future of retail won’t be built on deeper discounts or louder ads. It’ll be built on better relationships, and those relationships will be powered by resale.
When your products have a path back to your store, your customers do too. That’s not theory — it’s practice. It’s how resale and retail combine to form something smarter: a business that earns repeat visits not through gimmicks, but through real value.
Consumers today don’t just want to purchase items. They want to participate in systems that respect their wallet, their time, and the planet. They want to shop in ways that feel smart, not wasteful. And when your retail store gives them the ability to resell, rebuy, or trade, you're not just giving them a better deal. You’re giving them a reason to stay.
TWICE was built for exactly this kind of business: circular, resilient, and connected at every step. From inventory and accounts to pricing and logistics, we make it possible for modern retailers to operate in a world where ownership is flexible, value is reused, and sales don’t end at checkout.
Resale isn’t a side hustle. It’s a structural shift.
Retailers who realize this early will define the next generation of brands. Not because they shouted louder, but because they made it easier for buyers to return, stay, and keep shopping.
Resale keeps the product in play. But more importantly, it keeps the customer in the game.
The Loyalty Loop starts here.