Zircle: Zalando tests resale with second-hand clothing pop-up

Zalando has become the latest fashion company to dip its toes into the resale market as it pilots ‘Zircle’, a pop-up store in Berlin's Alexa shopping mall that sells second-hand clothing.

Zircle (the name combines the words Zalando and Circular) sells used fashion items that were purchased from customers of Zalando Wardrobe.

A spokesperson for Zalando said: “The goal of this experiment is to learn how offline selling of second hand fashion works for Zalando and find out if we can reach new customers. With these learnings we can then evaluate what works best for our customers and improve their shopping and selling experience.

“Our core expertise is and will continue to be online business, but in certain business areas we believe in the relevance of offline activities and see the future of fashion commerce as an intelligent network that combines the best of both worlds (offline shops and online shops).”

Launched in 2018, Zalando Wardrobe is a digital wardrobe app for fashion items that allows customers to sell their used Zalando clothing back to the company for store vouchers. The app is currently only available in Germany.

Last week, major US department stores Macy’s and JCPenney both announced they had entered into partnerships with the San Francisco-based resale company ThredUp. Earlier this week, the second-hand fashion company revealed it had received 175 million dollars in funding that it will use to “fuel a new wave of growth and platform expansion.”

Photo courtesy of Zalando Zircle