Investigating the Customer Journey in Second-Hand Fashion Platforms: Implications for Luxury Brand Management.

01 Why it matters.

One of the first academic studies to examine the customer journey specifically on secondhand luxury platforms — and it reveals something that purely commercial analysis misses. Murtas and Pedeliento found that the experiential dimension of platform engagement — the narrative of an item’s provenance, the discovery mechanics, the community interactions — shapes loyalty and repeat behaviour more powerfully than the functional dimensions of price and authentication.

This finding reframes what Vestiaire Collective is. It is not primarily a price-access platform; it is a space of cultural participation in luxury. Consumers return not because the prices are right but because the experience of finding, understanding, and acquiring a secondhand luxury piece is emotionally rewarding in ways that primary retail often is not. That insight has direct implications for how luxury brands should think about their relationship to the resale ecosystem.

02 Key takeaways.

1. 01 The experiential dimension of secondhand luxury platforms (discovery, provenance narrative, community) predicts loyalty more strongly than functional dimensions (price, authentication).
2. 02 Consumers engage with secondhand luxury platforms as cultural participants, not simply as value-seeking shoppers.
3. 03 The provenance narrative of a pre-owned item adds emotional value that new items cannot replicate.
4. 04 Platform trust (authentication credibility) is the necessary condition for engagement, but not its driver — experience is the driver.
5. 05 Luxury brands that engage with resale platforms proactively gain access to a customer engagement dynamic they cannot create in primary retail.

03 Used in our research.

1. 01 Case StudyVestiaire Collective: Making Resale Feel Like Luxury
2. 02 InsightCarbon Credits and Circular Fashion: Is Vestiaire’s Bet the Future?Coming soon