Today, few secondhand shops are successful online. Some have started and then closed down, while others struggle while experiencing major challenges. This applies to both traditional fashion retailers as well as charity organisations.

Previous projects aroused curiosity

Kanchana Dissanayake, Senior Lecturer in textile management at the Swedish School of Textiles at the University of Borås, is the project manager for the ReLoRe project. She has previously researched the secondhand clothing supply chains in the CLOSeD project. There, the researchers could see major challenges when it came to logistics, challenges that stand in the way of the profitability secondhand as e-commerce.

"In that project, we saw a few main challenges: firstly, every secondhand garment is unique, so it is a long, expensive and inefficient process from the point of collection until it can be uploaded to a web shop. There are also challenges related to warehousing and delivery. We wanted to investigate these logistics challenges and any other causes further, as well as analyse them, and that's why we started ReLoRe," she said.

New guidelines for more profitable business models

Now she and her colleagues Rudrajeet Pal, professor at the Swedish School of Textiles and Erik Sandberg, professor at Linköping University are studying the issue in depth. Through interviews with Swedish-based charity organisations and traditional fashion retailers, they will analyse both logistical challenges and the success factors for online retail.

"Today, there are several that start but then closed down. We want society to move towards a circular economy and the secondhand market has an important role in that end. By exploring challenges and sharing best practices, we hope to contribute to more profitable e-business models in the industry," concluded Kanchana Dissanayake.

Facts

The project is funded by the Hakon Swenson Foundation and runs for 2.5 years and ends in December 2026.

Read more

About the ReLoRe project 

About the CLOSeD project