Accelerating the Export of Second-Hand Luxury Goods: Under the Trend of the Circular Economy, Chinese Sellers Confront Multiple Challenges and Brave the Global Market

This newspaper (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Yi Zhao, Shanghai

A Louis Vuitton pre-owned bag that travels across the ocean from China to be in the hands of overseas buyers needs to deal with a whole series of issues—how to verify authenticity, how to issue receipts, how to handle customs clearance compliantly, how to ensure payments are received, and more. If any step goes awry, it will add substantial operating costs.

However, even amid difficulties, as a global powerhouse in luxury consumption, China—by virtue of its accumulated vast stock of idle luxury goods—has already become a supply-side force that cannot be ignored in the secondhand luxury track. A few days ago, the “China Fashion Luxury Cross-Border Export Guide” released by eBay (hereinafter the “Guide”) shows that 89% of consumers worldwide plan to continue purchasing or increase their purchase of secondhand items, providing stronger support for Chinese secondhand luxury sellers to go global.

“Today’s China is witnessing explosive growth in the secondhand luxury market.” Pang Tao, eBay Greater China Sales and Category Management General Manager, told a reporter from The Huaxia Times that the reason Chinese secondhand luxury cross-border exports are expected to become a new growth pole for the platform lies in support from both inventory accumulation and digital technology. China’s market size for first-hand consumer products ranks near the top globally. Over the past nearly 20 years, it has accumulated a large volume of first-hand luxury goods, resulting in a batch of inventory with relatively newer condition and higher quality. Although China’s secondhand trading market started later, due to digital development, it has caught up and even overtaken others in service capability, authentication standards, product depth, and breadth. For Chinese sellers, whether it is inventory management or logistics, the entire operating system is run within IT systems. In addition, the domestic secondhand luxury market has fierce competition and transparent pricing, forming room for price differences with overseas markets.

Multiple windfall opportunities: Chinese secondhand luxury sellers go global and catch several major headwinds

With the deepening of the circular economy concept, demand in the secondhand luxury market continues to be released. According to BCG research data, the secondhand luxury market currently accounts for 8% of total global fashion luxury sales and is expected to exceed USD 320 billion to USD 360 billion by 2030, with its share rising to 10%.

The Guide shows that Gen Z and Millennials are the main driving forces behind growth in global secondhand luxury consumption. This group pursues both fashion and quality while also paying attention to value for money and green consumption, becoming the core force driving market growth. At the same time, global secondhand luxury consumption also exhibits clear trend characteristics: classic handbags, boosted by film and television IP, have become a new favorite among Gen Z; vintage styles are returning in parallel. Pearls are leading the vintage jewelry trend, and celebrity hotspot events have caused searches for matching jewelry and watches to soar. Top brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada remain firmly in the top ranks of best-selling brands, and even a change in a brand’s creative director can make some classic items’ sales growth exceed 300%. These clear market trends provide a clear direction for Chinese sellers’ product selection and operations.

“Starting in 2018, we changed from importing secondhand luxury goods from Japan to exporting overseas. At present, our domestic secondhand luxury inventory has competitive advantages in terms of style, condition, and pricing, and there is still a large amount of stock that has not yet been absorbed by the market.” Jiang Min, founder and CEO of secondhand luxury seller Shengtang Company, told The Huaxia Times reporter.

“China has abundant luxury inventory, which provides a solid sourcing foundation for secondhand luxury going overseas.” Jiang Min said that as one of the world’s important luxury consumption markets, China’s years of consumption accumulation have formed abundant resources of idle high-end consumer goods. The large stock base allows the supply of secondhand luxury goods to keep expanding, and it also makes China an important supply-side hub in the global secondhand luxury market.

Jiang Min also pointed out that years of development in China’s cross-border e-commerce industry have enabled many sellers to accumulate rich experience in cross-border operations, traffic placement, and logistics coordination, all of which have become important backing for Chinese secondhand luxury sellers to go overseas.

Support at the policy level has also removed obstacles to China’s secondhand luxury going global. Jiang Min said that since last year, regulatory authorities have increased their attention to the secondhand luxury industry. Free trade bonded zones in multiple locations have established secondhand industry parks one after another, providing more complete infrastructure and policy support for industry compliance, and also offering long-term upward momentum for its cross-border business.

Amid the boom, hidden “shoals” lie beneath the surface

Trust is the biggest problem in the secondhand luxury market. “Overseas consumers have a natural bias toward cross-border products,” Jiang Min said. Trust is the most critical issue in cross-border trade. Because the journey is long, if returns occur, it creates troublesome time and logistics costs for sellers. Therefore, brand authentication and authenticity verification are especially important.

“For transactions involving secondhand luxury goods, trust between both the buyer and the seller is a prerequisite and also the core pain point.” Pang Tao said that to support eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee (AG) program, the platform directly steps in to manage the goods verification stage, providing both buyers and sellers with a unified and clear trust mechanism. Under this program, after eligible items are sold, the goods are shipped directly to the eBay authentication centers in the corresponding global categories, where professional authentication teams verify whether the item is genuine and check its condition to ensure that every item that passes verification is authentic. After verification is complete, the goods are then delivered to the buyer, with the key process managed uniformly by the platform. To help sellers seize the golden opportunity of a new wave for fashion secondhand luxury going global, eBay has officially launched specialized seller recruitment for the fashion luxury category nationwide, with deep dives into cities including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Xiamen.

Jiang Min also noted that “there are significant differences in consumption preferences between consumers at home and abroad. Taking bags as an example, domestic consumers prefer darker colors and smaller sizes, while overseas consumers favor brighter colors and larger-size styles. We are based in China, so we need to spend more effort researching overseas consumers’ preferences.”

In addition, Liang Guanrong, co-founder of secondhand luxury seller Senza Group, told The Huaxia Times reporter that unstable tax rates, customs inspections, and rising international logistics costs are also the main problems faced in current cross-border operations. In addition, geopolitical factors such as U.S.-China relations can also directly affect cross-border transactions.

The trillion-dollar track for Chinese secondhand luxury going overseas is currently at a crucial turning point from “brutal growth” to “regulated development.” Compliance, standardization, and platformization are the inevitable directions for the industry to break through the bottlenecks. Lin Wen Kui, General Manager of eBay’s International Cross-Border Trade business division for Greater China, told The Huaxia Times reporter: “Currently, the circular economy is accelerating into the mainstream of global consumption. This is pushing fashion luxury to shift from one-time consumption to a global circulation model of goods that appreciate continuously, releasing huge cross-border market opportunities. China has abundant and high-quality resources of secondhand luxury goods, and sellers also possess mature capabilities in cross-border operations. eBay’s China team will continue to fully empower sellers, seize this strategic windfall, and work together to open a brand-new future for cross-border exports of secondhand luxury goods.”

责任编辑：Xu Yunqian 主编：Gong Peijia