Vestiaire Collective is part of a new breed of memberly, pureplay online luxury sellers focussed almost entirely on second hand goods. Launched in Paris in October 2009, vestiairecollective.com has more than 23 million members, across 70 countries, with offices in Paris, London, New York, Milan, Berlin and Hong Kong.
More than 30,000 new items are submitted by its community of sellers every week, which enables buyers to access around 3,500 items a day. In 2023 it sold 2.3 million items to 800,000 unique buyers.
The pre-owned fashion sector has experienced rapid growth over the past four years, with acceleration during the pandemic continuing apace in to the middle of the 2020s. This has been predominantly driven by younger consumers’ increased focus on sustainability and a growing trend for social shopping and online communities. Second hand luxury is also much more affordable to this audience than box-fresh items.
Vestiaire has been at the vanguard of this interest in pre-loved and re-loved fashion and it is testament to the vision of its business model that the company raised €178m in financing in 2021, backed by global French luxury group Kering and US investment firm Tiger Global Management. By February 2024, Vestiaire Collective had raised some €824mn in total funding, including various rounds since its launch, including, in February 2024, €15 million through Crowdcube investors.
The site’s popularity in France is driven by a number of factors. Firstly, it is French and has close ties with French luxury brands which is attractive to consumers. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that it fills two big demands from French consumers: the desire for affordable luxury and that of wanting more sustainable fashion. The more sustainable focus of what it does is proving particularly appealing to younger shoppers in the French market, who have driven the site to be the most trafficked luxury offering in the French market.
The endorsement of the site by celebrities including Kim Kardashian has also elevated the company both at home in France and on the wider world stage, bringing not only its sustainability credentials to the wider world, but also promoting its inherent French-ness – something that is seen as helping drive sales in key markets, where France is seen as synonymous with luxury and style.
This is one of six profiles illustrating the French luxury sector in the brand new report. Cartier, Givency, L’Occitane, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent are also studied in detail.
The InternetRetailing France Luxury 2025 report presents a comprehensive overview of the market’s strong profitability and the unique motivations of French luxury consumers, who value quality, local goods, and increasingly, sustainability.
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