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Customer appetite for resale is no longer up for debate. It's here, and it's growing fast. After launching resale with more than 50 brands, we've seen demand soar, consistently outpacing brand expectations. As resale programs mature, the challenge has shifted from generating demand to keeping up with it.
At Archive, the majority of our brand partners now face the same question: how to unlock enough resale inventory to meet customer demand. Many brands pilot with a single inventory source for launch, but quickly realize that scaling a resale business relies on supply diversification.
It can be difficult to know whether new channels—such as online or in-store trade-in, damaged returns, and peer-to-peer—will generate meaningful supply, which is why experimentation is key. During our Resale Summit in New York, we discussed six channels for generating high-quality resale inventory and how our brand partners are using them to meet rising customer demand and build sustainable circular businesses.
Brand-owned inventory is often the most immediate source of resale supply. This includes customer returns, samples, lightly damaged goods, warranty items and excess stock that can’t be sold as new. Too often, these products are liquidated, downcycled, or written off, leaving both revenue and brand equity on the table.
Redirecting this inventory into a brand-owned resale channel not only recovers higher margins than traditional off-price partners but also provides valuable customer data and strengthens a brand’s circularity story.
For example, after Faherty, which launched its Second Wave program as a peer-to-peer marketplace, later added brand-owned inventory to its resale mix, it increased conversion from 2% to 3% and experienced a 40% increase in sales.
Among these sources, excess stock is one of the biggest untapped opportunities. Rather than clearing unsold inventory through off-price channels, brands are now rerouting it into resale to maintain clear control over pricing, storytelling, and customer experience.
Some brands hesitate to market this inventory as “resale,” since these products may not have been previously owned. But the stronger framing centers on circularity and keeping products in use and out of landfills. Anything that can’t be sold as new can, and should, have a second life through resale, reinforcing a brand’s broader sustainability and resource stewardship mission.
Brands can also tap inventory that comes back from third party retailers for resale. Karhu, for instance, uses its Renewed program to resell shoes that are returned on warranty to one of its national wholesale partners.
Many retailers sign contracts that include “no return discounts,” meaning that wholesalers purchase branded products at a lower price and agree to manage any unsold inventory. But now, more brands are allowing wholesalers to return aged or unsold products, which then feed into resale programs. As a result, companies avoid no return discounts, protect brand value, and generate revenue from secondhand sales.
Trade-in can generate meaningful supply, but it's not always a silver bullet. At Archive, we recommend that brands align on their main goals before launching trade-in, and then build out that channel in order to meet those goals. Those goals typically include bringing in more sellable resale supply, increasing foot traffic to stores, driving up-spend and customer lifetime value, and re-engaging lapsed customers.
For brands hoping to generate sellable supply, we encourage specifying which items your brand wants to take back. The North Face uses bonus trade-in credits for specific categories like outerwear which proved that targeted, time-bound incentives can align supply with seasonal demand.
If a brand has broader goals around customer loyalty, they might have more appetite for the lower-margin items that drive value in other ways. Faherty’s in-store trade-in pilot program, for instance, allows for instant store credit redemption and helps drive mainline sales. The brand is now expanding the pilot to stores nationwide.
For products that can’t be resold as-is, repair and refashioning are creative ways of offering new, premium SKUs. This approach positions resale not just as sustainability, but as creative brand storytelling, often in collaboration with logistics and design teams.
At The North Face, the team behind Renewed has developed a REMADE line that upcycles unsellable products into entirely new, one of a kind pieces - a process made possible through close collaboration with Tersus Solutions and the brand’s circular design team.
By deconstructing damaged items and reimagining them into new forms, The North Face is proving that waste can become a premium expression of the brand. Some REMADE products now sell for more than MSRP, generating meaningful press and deepening consumer engagement around quality and circular design.
Vintage and archival supply are typically one of the most untapped sources, but they have potential to sell at a premium price point.
Recently, brands like Ralph Lauren and Gap have experimented with curated drops of branded vintage, treating them as high-value capsules that reinforce heritage and exclusivity. Archive’s platform has built-in support for vintage curation, deferred listing, and collection launches, underscoring our operational readiness for this supply type.
Peer-to-peer resale helps eliminate supply barriers because customers list items directly online without having to bring them to a store or third-party. It also helps cater to secondhand shoppers who have grown accustomed to platforms like Depop, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace.
Each supply channel generates data that strengthens the entire product ecosystem. Brands can get insights on which products sell fastest, which categories hold the most value, and how different incentives change customer behavior.
By tracking and acting on these signals, brands can start to balance their supply portfolios - ramping up trade-ins during high-demand periods, targeting loyal customers for listings, or prioritizing categories with the strongest resale margins.
Some leading brands are now entering a new phase of maturity and building profitability models across each supply stream. Rather than viewing resale as a single channel, they’re analyzing how each supply source contributes differently to the business. Some may drive margin recovery, while others strengthen customer loyalty or mainline sales. The next evolution is optimizing that mix, deciding where to invest more deeply based on both financial performance and customer engagement data.
This kind of analysis marks a turning point in resale maturity. Early programs focus on standing up new channels, while scale-stage programs focus on understanding how those channels interact. No matter what, data remains the engine of this flywheel, helping brands inform incentives, product design, marketing strategy, and ultimately, circular growth.
At the end of the day, resale isn’t just about selling used goods; it’s about strengthening customer relationships, reaching new audiences who value sustainability and affordability, and advancing our shared commitment to keeping products in circulation and out of landfills.
By diversifying supply sources and capturing the data and insights that come with them, brands can turn resale into a compounding growth engine — one that builds loyalty, improves profitability, and brings them closer to a truly circular model.
The conversation is no longer Can we make this program work?, it’s How big can we scale it?
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