The luxury market is a $1.5 trillion dollar market that includes everything from desginer clothing to fine jewelry to elegant home furnishings. Most of that spending is at the front end as products are made, but what happens to items that are made to last when their owners no longer need them? That’s where The RealReal plays a key role in the luxury economy, accepting the best names in today’s fashion, fine jewelry and home decor on consignment and giving them new life.
Consignment isn’t a new idea, but the accessibility of it is. With online shopping, you can choose what fits your size and style, place your order and start delivery within hours. Although you can also visit its brick and mortar locations, The RealReal is as close as your phone or computer. If you need more reasons to try consignment shopping or selling, here’s a baker’s dozen of them that will have you making the switch to secondhand.
High Fashion, Lower Prices
Whether you love to browse fashions from a range of design houses or are a brand loyalist, consignment shopping online lets you find what you want in precisely your size and at a price point that’s half or less what you would pay for the same item if you bought it off the rack. Sometimes clothing outlasts its original owner’s need for it, and consignment sales are the perfect way to pick up a like-new garment or handbag for a fraction of its original price. If, for example, a consignor sheds a few pounds and no longer fits into her Chanel dress, her loss could be your gain.
Some of the names you’ll see at The RealReal are the same as those in any high-end shop, including Burberry, Louboutin and Cartier. If you’ve ever passed by a shop window and suffered sticker shock at a purse or poncho, this is your chance to have the genuine article for less. With options to buy over time, you could even pay in installments for legacy pieces meant to last for a lifetime.
Variety Keeps Your Wardrobe Fresh
Fads come and go, but style is always in season. Still, every style benefits from the occasional update, and consignment sales help you keep your wardrobe current. Making a few lateral moves in your clothing rotation is an excellent way to look as though you have a walk-in closet the size of a Manhattan apartment even if you’re working with a one-door wardrobe’s worth of clothing at a time. Swapping out that lipstick red leather coat you loved last year for one in purple has just as much punch, but it will look totally new to your admiring audience.
As you become more adept at the secondhand consignment scene, your closet is essentially as large as your selection on The RealReal, especially if you become a consignor too. Order it, wear it and send it on to a new home when you’re ready. You’ll never need to worry about where to store last year’s coats when you know you’ll have a range of new ones to shop this year.
Seasonal Storage Is Simple
There’s another advantage to treating the consignment shop as your virtual closet: You’ll reclaim plenty of space in your actual closet. How much room do your off-season garments and shoes take in your home? If you’re lucky, you might have a separate closet for them, but most people make do with space-saving solutions where they can, squeezing everything into garment bags toward the back of the closet and hauling this season’s clothing to the front.
With consignment shopping, you don’t have to deal with the semi-annual seasonal shuffle from spring and summer wear to bulkier fall and winter fashions. Just send off what you no longer need on consignment and shop for your entire season at once. Shopping seasonally like this also lets you build a more cohesive wardrobe by selecting your favorite designers, choosing a color story or building around a few dramatic key pieces. If you already have a look in mind, create a mood board at Pinterest and build your seasonal wardrobe from it using The RealReal’s drop-down menus for easier coordination. If you need inspiration, browsing by color, pattern or designer will help you refine your look.
Surround Yourself with Art
Pop quiz: Take a look around you right now and think about the first five words that come to mind to describe your surroundings. If you’re in a coffeehouse, you might appreciate the relaxed and welcoming vibe. If you’re at home in your living room, maybe it’s your eclectic or dramatic style that you notice first. Whatever personal style suits you, you can surround yourself with more of it when you shop for furniture, art and home wares on consignment.
Unlike many secondhand shops, The RealReal offers fine furnishings and art so you can surround yourself with beauty. A harmonious home or office means more than just visual appeal. Your space has a dramatic impact on your mood and that of anyone who shares it with you. Think about how your next dinner party might be elevated with an elegant new dining table instead of buffet-style dining in the kitchen. Maybe it’s your office that needs an upgrade, so shop for a statement piece that will impress clients or soft lighting to put them at their ease.
Secondhand shopping makes sense when buying items that are built to last for decades. Take full advantage of someone else’s remodeling project and scoop up designer furnishings and art from some of today’s most renowned artists while they’re more affordable.
The RealReal is Sustainability in Style
What happens to those quickly made items that are in style for a season and disappear? Fashion that isn’t made to last winds up being recycled into rags or even thrown out, where it sits in landfills. Fast fashion is a waste to buy in the long run, even though its low cost and mass appeal make it seem initially alluring. What’s worse, some of it is made using methods and labor that are not sustainable. At the same time, you have to have something to wear to the office, and designer labels may have prices that are out of reach.
Consignment shops are the ideal solution to sustainable fashion. By extending the wear of clothing that’s meant to last and giving it new life in another closet, you avoid the drawbacks of fast fashion and can feel as good as you look when wearing designers who have built good reputations for sustainable practices.
Wearing jewelry that has come from a consignment store also ensures that you’re making the most of what’s already here instead of contributing to mining practices that can be harmful to the planet or the people who share it with you. Estate jewelry, including engagement and wedding rings, is available on consignment after being examined by expert gemologists and appraisers.
Luxury as a Life Cycle
Conscious consumption means understanding what happens to what you buy at every stage of its life. It means developing an aesthetic sense that goes beyond craving newness and also appreciates how beautifully some items wear over time. While not everything becomes more beautiful with time, many durable items do. The rich, mellow patina of age on polished wood or the supple softness of older leather handbags is part of their charm. You can wait a few years for these signs of elegant maturity to appear on their own, or you can take a shortcut and buy secondhand.
There’s a human element to seeing luxury as a life cycle too. Someone loved this sculpture or sofa or a pair of shoes before you, and if you care for it well, someone else can love it after you. When you buy secondhand, you become a part of that cycle from artist to aesthete, sharing what you love with other taste-makers in ways that benefit you both. Every secondhand luxury piece has a story, and although you may never know it fully, you can read glimpses of it in the clothes you wear. When you see the items around you as little pieces of history, who would want to buy a mass-produced item off the rack?
Upgrade over Time
For recent graduates and upwardly mobile professionals, building a wardrobe of classics takes time and money – sometimes more than they can easily afford. Yet the common wisdom of dressing for the job you hope to have is true. Looking like you belong in the corner office is a prerequisite for earning it. Breaking the fast-fashion cycle is a must if you want to dress for a new role as a c-level executive or business owner. Shopping secondhand to add a few high-end wardrobe basics to your closet a few times a year will soon give you a closet filled with durable, elegant designer looks.
You don’t need to have aspirations in the business world to want to upgrade your look. Just as you probably don’t drink from a juice box or eat things shaped like your favorite cartoon character, you probably don’t want to wear what you wore a decade ago. Fashion evolves, and it’s natural to progress to more elegant, dramatic or classic looks. These looks are the difference between Fashion 101 and advanced style, but consignment shopping makes it easy to assemble outfits that fit your evolving tastes.
The RealReal Lets You Design Your Unique Look
Secondhand shopping has seen a great renaissance over the past decade, and one reason why is that there’s more respect for a truly personal take on fashion. Fads are what other people tell you to wear, but style comes from an innate sense of who you are and what you want to project through your fashion choices. If you’ve ever seen a dress and instantly named the woman who would look perfect in it, you’ve met someone with real style. That unique sense of style doesn’t happen overnight or without effort, and secondhand shopping lets you explore your style and experiment for less.
While consignment stores aren’t couture clothing that’s one of a kind, they do feature items that are distinctively different from off-the-rack counterparts. You won’t find two dozen identical white shirts or an endless array of the same wrap skirt that’s featured in every shop window. By browsing a wide selection of secondhand items, you’ll find a few that speak to you. When you find the item that resonates with your tastes, you know you’re on your way to developing a signature style.
Sneak a Peek
The one-of-a-kind nature of secondhand shopping makes it easy to put together your signature look, but it also presents a challenge. What if someone else is reaching for that pair of Manolo Blahniks you were eyeing just a day ago? Some consignment shops let you buy into a VIP membership for a small fee, giving you a glimpse of what’s just about to hit the shelves. You’ll get the first pick of what consignors have for sale, and the investment is usually low. The RealReal’s First Look program, for example, is $10 a month and also includes advance notification of sales.
If you’re eager to wear the latest styles, early-look programs are for you. They’re also a good idea if you like to settle in for a lengthy shopping session or if you take a little longer to make your buying decisions as you won’t have as much competition for items you’ve set aside to think about for later. Impulse buyers might enjoy investing in early-bird enrollment for the sake of the sales available as part of the program.
Caring Customer Service
Secondhand sales sometimes suffer from the notion that customer care is secondhand too, but it isn’t true of luxury consignment shops. If anything, you have access to more and better customer care than you would when buying off the rack from sellers who are often only interested in their commission and aren’t concerned with whether they ever see you again. Consignment stores rely on repeat business in two directions as their buyers are also often their sellers, so they can’t afford to treat their customers as onetime shoppers.
If you’re going to buy from a consignment store, pay attention to the shop’s consignor requirements and return policies. By knowing what consignors go through to sell an item, you’ll have a clearer idea of what you’re buying. For instance, has a policy of destroying counterfeit items that come in for sale. That’s a steep hill for sellers, some of whom may send in items without realizing they’re counterfeit, but it makes buying with confidence much easier.
Some other essentials to note about buying from consignment shops:
- Are non-returnable items marked clearly?
- Are returns available within a limited time frame?
- Can returns be refunded to your credit card or solely with store credit?
- Do returns include shipping charges?
Authenticity Counts
Unlike fast fashion, designer labels are meant to last. Unfortunately, counterfeit label-makers know this too and trade on legitimate designers’ good names and reputations. When you look for a designer label, you aren’t just buying prestige; you’re after the lasting quality that comes with the brand’s imprint, and that only comes with authentic products.
Secondhand shopping without authentication is a risky proposition. While you’ll find plenty of designer labels on secondhand websites and online auction houses, you may not have any guarantees about what you’re buying. With a system to show condition and pictures that give you a detailed look at your prospective buys, you’re seeing the actual item you will own from trusted consignment shops like The RealReal. Put your eye for fashion to good use and look through the photos at every angle to see designer quality up close.
Paying attention to the stitching on handbags, prong settings on jewelry and pattern matching on clothing speaks volumes about its quality and authenticity, but it isn’t always enough to keep counterfeiters at bay. The RealReal has a team of authentication experts who examine every item, and because the company has a policy of destroying counterfeit pieces, few fakes come their way.
Expert Evaluations
Knowing how important a designer label is to understanding a piece’s provenance and durability, how do know that your item is authentic? Experienced evaluators can spot even sophisticated fakes, and teams of them examine the items for sale at The RealReal. They look for telltale signs of counterfeit products such as uneven stitching, coarse textures, thinner materials or mismatched patterns.
Expert evaluation is especially important with the rise of so-called super-fakes or line-for-line counterfeit items that are designed to fool even sharp-eyed shoppers. As counterfeiters have gotten more sophisticated with their knock-offs, the usual consumer checklists of what to look for in an authentic item may not be enough. Designers are aware of the booming trade in knock-offs and foil them with an array of design elements that only experts know to find. These are a bit like the anti-counterfeit measures you’ll find in paper money.
Some of the specific details The RealReal experts look for include metal types and weights on fittings, evenness of printing on labels, stitching quality, consistent patterns and zipper castings. These subtle details can get past even careful buyers, but experts who see hundreds of bags a year learn the signs of authenticity, giving shoppers a needed layer of protection. Bonus: When you’ve bought an authenticated item, you can also consign it as one with confidence.
Earn from Your Closet
Speaking of consignment, after shopping for luxury secondhand, you may eventually want to move to the other side of the equation and put your own carefully handled items up for sale. Depending on wear and demand, you can see as much as 85 percent of your item’s original price back when you sell. In other words, your next Prada bag could effectively cost you only 15 percent of its purchase price, if you’re careful with it and sell while it’s still in excellent condition.
Selling secondhand can be as easy as putting an item up for sale on an auction site, but that method has its drawbacks. Consignment takes a little longer when items have to be authenticated and photographed, so it isn’t instant money. It’s almost always more money, though. The same protections that let you buy with confidence also work to your benefit when you sell, so your buyer knows you are giving them the real deal. You also don’t have to worry about photographing an item in its best light or packaging it for shipping to its new owner.
Secondhand luxury is still just as luxurious, but it costs less. It’s also a more sustainable way to shop, and it lets you put together a signature look like no one else’s while surrounding yourself with trusted designer brands. When you add up the advantages, you’ll arrive at one conclusion: When it comes to buying or selling secondhand, consignment is the way to go.
