This week, a look at Rebag’s growth through partnerships with retailers like Walmart, Bloomingdale’s and, most recently, Amazon. We also examine how resale’s immunity to tariffs is making it an appealing partner for retailers.
Ten years ago, Rebag started as a humble trading service for pre-owned luxury handbags. Over a decade later, it has become a powerhouse in the industry, with $200 million in revenue, 33,000 handbags in rotation, and high-profile partnerships with retailers like Walmart, Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s.
This week, Rebag launched its biggest partnership yet, with Amazon, joining Amazon’s Luxury Stores section and bringing almost the entirety of its product catalogue to Amazon’s marketplace. Amazon approached Rebag with the idea for the partnership, according to Charles Gorra, Rebag founder and CEO. He said it’s a vote of confidence that Amazon, with vast resources at its disposal, turned to Rebag for its luxury resale ambitions rather than build a platform itself.
It’s another strong indicator that, as tariff volatility is putting a damper on many mainstream fashion businesses, resale, with its product mostly immune to direct tariff impacts, is a potentially safer alternative source of product for retailers.
Gorra told Glossy that Rebag’s DTC business will remain the core of the business, but he sees the partnerships with Amazon and Walmart as additive. Rebag already has excellent brand awareness among people who are already shopping pre-owned luxury, Gorra said, so now it’s focusing on finding a new audience.
“What we do is quite hard because of unit economics,” Gorra said. “Everything is a different SKU, so it’s low margin and high effort. So in order to magnify that and multiply our scale, we want to meet new customers through other ecosystems. If we want to skyrocket, and get everybody to know what Rebag is, this is the way to do it.”
At the Glossy E-Commerce Summit in Miami last week, Walmart’s head of women’s apparel, Ryan Waymire, told Glossy that Walmart’s partnership with Rebag has been fruitful even in the four short months since it began.
“We’ve been incredibly impressed with our collaboration with Rebag,” Waymire told Glossy. “Right out of the gate, it’s been on fire. Customers love that they get access to luxury brands. Five years ago, no one would have thought they could buy a Birkin bag at Walmart.”
The idea that customers can buy a high-end luxury product at places like Amazon or Walmart may be a concern to the brands, many of which have stayed clear of those platforms for fear of brand dilution.
But for big platforms like Amazon and Walmart, working with Rebag or Saks Fifth Avenue, which Amazon has partnered with as of early May, is a good way to strengthen their luxury presence without having to directly court brands. Amazon Luxury Stores has added brands like Altuzarra, Sergio Hudson and Rodarte, but it hasn’t been able to bring on big conglomerate brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada. Through the Rebag and Saks partnerships, brands like Balmain and Dolce & Gabbana can now be legitimately sold on the marketplace.
Those partnerships also lend further legitimacy to resale companies like Rebag and pave the way for other partnerships. StockX is also working with Walmart, for example, and Neiman Marcus has had an ongoing partnership with handbag reseller Fashionphile for several years.
Major resale brands like ThredUp have touted the claim that tariff volatility has created an ideal moment for resale to grow. The idea is that, because most resold products are already here in the U.S., they’re not subject to tariffs, and lower costs are more appealing to customers dealing with rising prices elsewhere.
Gorra is less certain that that impact will hold, especially for luxury resale.
“[The tariffs] change day by day, as we’ve all learned, so we don’t really know what will happen,” he said. “Our product is largely in the U.S., and we have seen a large uptick in the business in the last few months, but I don’t know if it’s directly because of tariffs. Everybody feels the impact of inflation, but the jury is still out on whether tariffs will help or hurt our business in the long run.”
Stat of the week
Nearly 72% of 22 fashion and beauty brand executives surveyed by Glossy’s research team said they have raised prices in the last year or plan to raise them in the next year. It’s a stark reminder that the pressure from tariffs and inflation has increased costs across the industry, and more price hikes are likely to continue. Check out the chart below for the full breakdown of price increases, including by what percentage.
News to know
- A federal appeals court blocked a stay from a lower court against the Trump administration’s tariffs, allowing them to continue. Both the initial ruling by the Court of International Trade and the block by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are temporary, awaiting the appeals court to hear further arguments.
- Trump said on Wednesday that a truce had been reached with China in the ongoing trade war, although in reality a solid agreement between the two countries is still up in the air. The agreement made on Tuesday night was only a “framework” for how to implement an earlier agreement made in May, which is still pending approval from both countries.
- Three years after Zara owner Inditex’s new chair Marta Ortega took over the company, it’s seeing slower growth due to tariff uncertainty. In earnings released this week, quarterly growth fell to 1.5%. The U.S. is its second largest market, and summer sales have been slower than usual for Zara.
