With H&M Pre-Loved, the fast fashion giant is helping garments gain renewed relevance, as it becomes the largest retailer to use ThredUP’s Resale-as-a-Service platform. The H&M Pre-Loved shop powered by ThredUP’s RaaS, offers consumers an easy and seamless way to find secondhand items that can be re-loved over and over again.

H&M and other fast fashion retailers have been taken to task for churning out millions of garments and designs every year. With more than 5,000 stores worldwide, H&M is known for quickly copying runway fashion and trends and has been accused of greenwashing or using false pretenses to sell items that seem environmentally sound, but are unsustainable.

It makes sense that H&M would want to burnish its image with resale. The retailer isn’t new to the resale game. It first invested in Sellpy in 2015, and became a majority stakeholder in the company in 2019. H&M’s resale component in Europe operates through Sellpy, and H&M Rewear in Canada is operated on the retailer’s own site as a peer-to-peer platform.

The new U.S. shop expands H&M’s sustainability mission of establishing circular business models for itself and customers. H&M’s stated goal is doubling its revenue and more than halving its carbon emissions by 2030. In order to reach that goal of reducing carbon emissions by 56% by 2030, and by at least 90% by 2040, against a 2019 baseline, H&M is doubling down on second hand fashion and other sustainable initiatives.

“We’re really heavily investing in circular business models and we believe that resale is one of the strongest and easiest ways, especially for our customers to get involved, so definitely resale is going to grow as part of our business in the future,” Abigail Kammerzell, Head of Sustainability, H&M North America.

“When we looked into bringing second hand to the U.S., we took all our learnings within our brand DNA and looked at testing and learning and adapting,” said Kammerzell. “It really made sense to partner with ThredUP.

“They have such a wonderful business model,” Kammerzell added. “ThredUP’s RaaS platform is really user-friendly and we know that makes sustainability more impactful. To bring second hand to the most customers that we could, we wanted to partner with a company like ThredUP and utilize their platform to make it really easy to adopt and easy to access.

“We need to take responsibility for the impact fashion has on the climate and the environment,” Kammerzell added. “Circular business models can help us reduce and limit this negative impact, while continuing to deliver fashion and style for our customers. With the launch of our first resale model in the U.S. market, we’re taking the next big step in that direction.”

H&M Pre-Loved will launch with 30,000 pieces, which will have an impact on how many people buy second hand. “They built us a Resale as a Service page, which is accessible both from ThredUP and the H&M web site,” Kammerzell said. “All items from H&M will be cross-listed, both on the H&M Pre-Loved platform as well as on ThredUP. We’ll be able to drive more customers who already love H&M and are shopping on H&M’s web site. We’re hoping to give them access to shopping second hand.

“As much as I think most of us who work in this world [of fashion] are familiar with ThredUP, there are still people who haven’t heard about it or haven’t accessed it, so this is giving our customer another way of shopping great H&M products,” Kammerzell said. “ThredUP, of course, is working with the logistics piece of this and prices, for items are set by ThredUP.

“That’s where we’re able, because of our low prices, to even be that much more accessible and enable people to be part of it,” Kammerzell added. “Right now, we’re not offering credit on H&M through ThredUP, we’re just focusing on getting more consumers exposed to second hand.”

Garments are organized into several smaller sub shops of familiar H&M concepts including &Denim, Sport, Ladies, Divided and Kids. Fans of the brand’s sought-after collaborations and guest designer collections from years past will find treasures in the Collabs sub shop.

“We’re thrilled that H&M has chosen to partner with ThredUP to debut their first resale program in the U.S., building on their global momentum of investing in new circular business models,” said James Reinhart, CEO and Co-Founder of ThredUP. “As one of the largest retailers in the world, H&M’s impact potential is tremendous, and we’re pleased that ThredUP’s Resale-as-a-Service is powering a scalable resale program to reach H&M’s customers in a new and sustainable way.”

H&M believes new ways of doing business are needed to ensure that products are used more and for longer periods of time. Traditionally, fashion has followed a linear business model of take, make, waste.

Circular business models, such as H&M Pre-Loved powered by ThredUP’s Resale-as-a-Service, the brand’s garment collecting program enacted in 2013, as well as its new Circulator tool that supports designers through a new product development process, break this chain to keep garments in use longer and to make sure they are not wasted once they’ve come to the end of their useful lifespan.

A landing page for Pre-Loved, with an option for Just In, highlights some of the hero pieces. “We looked at the different models we worked with in different markets and what really worked. We then brought back what we thought would be successful for the U.S. market, and ThredUP was able to build us a resale as a service platform,” Kammerzell said.

“Of course, price is going to be important to everyone, but what we found is that what’s also important is making a great and accessible shopping experience,” Kammerzell said. “We know how important the shopping experience is. People will be shopping second hand and will be able to find those star pieces as well. There’s something for everyone.”