H&M is teaming up with ThredUp in the US to offer shoppers a resale programme called H&M Pre-loved. The move follows the fashion retailer’s roll out of H&M Pre-loved in Sweden in May 2022.
The news comes as H&M records very healthy sales growth of 12% across Q1 of 2023, hitting €49bn.
The US Pre-loved offering will use ThredUps ‘reseale as a service’ platform to create an online shop from which consumers can trade in and buy pre-loved H&M clothing lines. Lanching today (15 March), the service will mimic H&M’s own departments, covering &Denim, Sport, Ladies, Divided and Kids. Additionally, consumers will be able to purchase products from the “Collabs” sub shop, which will include items from memorable collaborations and guest designer collections.
CEO and Founder of ThredUp, James Reinhart, says: “As one of the largest retailers in the world, H&M’s impact potential is tremendous, and we are pleased that ThredUps’s RaaS is powering a scalable resale program to reach H&M’s customers in a new and sustainable way.”
Abigail Kammerzell, head of sustainability at H&M North America, adds: “We need to take responsibility for the impact fashion has on climate and the environment. Circular business models can help us reduce and limit this negative impact, while continuing to deliver fashion and style for our customers.”
Back in late 2022, H&M Group announced that it had expanded its Sellpy secondhand clothing platform to the Netherlands and Austria, after originally launching it in its home country of Sweden and later expanding to Germany.
At the time, Helena Helmersson, CEO of the H&M Group, highlighted the group’s concentrated efforts to double its sales while halving its carbon footprint, by 2030. The latter goal is linked to the H&M group’s COP26 commitment, with the aim to reduce carbon footprint in absolute figures by 56% by 2030 taking 2019 as a baseline.
