Can you tell if that pre-loved Birkin is fake?

Luxury is something that's rare and hard to achieve. But during the covid pandemic, the definition became more progressive. Today the definition, or rather the world of luxury, also encompasses that which is environmentally neutral, socially beneficial and culturally sustainable.

Keeping these three aspects in mind is where the industry found the need gap of the preloved/ preowned luxury market.

Globally, this trend is driven by several factors: environmental concerns, quality/ longevity, economic benefits, shifting consumer behaviour, digitalisation/technology advancements, brand repositioning. As of 2023, the global pre-loved luxury market was estimated to be valued at approximately $37 billion. This market is expected to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 10-15% over the next few years.

In India, the pre-owned luxury market was valued at $1.5 billion last year. By 2025, it is likely to hit $3 billion.

Also read: The latest brag in fashion? A secondhand luxury bag

Mapping the highs and lows 

The main driving factors for this growth are a shift in demographics, accessibility, rise in disposable income and middle-class expansion, conscious consumerism, awareness led by digitalisation, and quality and value proposition.

One of the major challenges faced by the luxury market for the pre-owned category has been authentication and trust issues owing to market fragmentation and cultural attitudes.

Today, the global secondhand market is flooded with counterfeit products, affecting sales and trust between brands and consumers. While technology has mostly been a boon to the luxury industry, advanced manufacturing techniques enable counterfeiters to produce replicas all over the globe that closely mimic authentic luxury products, be it leather or canvas.

Today, some of the well-known companies ruling the market in pre-owned goods are RealReal, Vestaire Collective who have a plethora of brands on their website, from Hermes to Jacquemus. There’s also Rolex, which has launched a platform for preloved/collector’s items.

In India, some of the key and noted players are Confidential Couture and Luxepolis that have steadily built a strong and loyal client base across the country.

But the common concern across both the platforms, international and national, remains the lack of uniformity or absence of universally accepted standards for verifying the authenticity of pre-owned luxury items. 

This, coupled with limited availability of expertise with the necessary knowledge and articulation to authenticate luxury goods accurately, leads to mass circulation of counterfeit items. Another challenge faced in the pre-owned industry is the absence of original purchase documents in most cases. Lack of provenance information for many pre-owned items, along with the factors mentioned earlier, make it difficult to prove the authenticity of a product.

Lastly, most preowned platforms operate a C2B2C model. Here there are two essential steps: shipments of the product by its seller to the platform, which then verifies and confirms the authenticity of the product followed by shipment from the platform to the buyer. This entire process involves costly human mobilisation—quite the opposite of consciousness consumerism.

As the secondhand luxury industry is growing at a rapid rate, the very essence of authenticity can be well addressed by formulating robust solutions to have a near perfect circular economy in the pre-owned marketplace.

Azka Sikka Jaiswal is assistant professor and department lead (west zone), Pearl Academy, Mumbai.

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