Notice How Teens Are Into Exclusive Resale

Resale retail is attractive to teen fashionistas, according to a feature article in last Sunday’s Hartford Courant. The article attributes the popularity to both a social consciousness and desire for extra funds which the teenagers satisfy by recycling their clothes for cash they can then spend on the low-priced merchandise at the resale store.
     Operating a successful resale store takes planning. You'll require expertise about what to pay for the used merchandise, knowledge of what used merchandise you can legally sell, polices about returns of used merchandise, and more. Still, consider joining in on this opportunity for profitability.
     For the strongest appeal to teens, think “exclusive.”

• Devote an entire department exclusively to teen fashions. Along with the appeal to teenagers of the resale model, there’s a stigma springing from associations of “resale” with “outdated.” This stigma is exaggerated when there’s resale clothing for older adults directly adjacent to that for the teens. One of stores named in the Hartford Courant article is This Ain’t Your Momma’s Closet. Other shops use names like Teenage Wasteland and The Dresscode to let it be known they’re for teens only. 
• A related point is that marketing methods helpful with adult resale stores won’t work as well with teen resale retailing. For instance, with adult resale, a tie-in of your for-profit business to charity can overcome resistances to patronage, since many adult consumers think of resale as benefitting charities. Savers, with nearly 300 stores, uses as a slogan “Good deeds. Good deals.” to portray that it gives a percentage of its profits to nonprofits. The appeal of that is less attractive to teen shoppers than to the adults. 
• It’s best to sell used items exclusively. If you do have both new and resale for teens, merchandise the two in completely different areas. Auto dealers don’t mix new and used cars. A stigma can rub off on new merchandise if it’s physically close to the used. There’s even evidence that having the same salesperson handle both the new and the used can decrease the willingness of the shopper to pay full price for unused items. 
• Market the exclusivity of the items you sell. The Hartford Courant article quotes the executive director of the Association of Resale Professionals as saying, “Teens… don’t want to go to the mall and get the exact same items as everyone else. Shopping resale allows them [to] find one-of-a-kind items….” 

Click below for more: 
Segment the Teen Market by World View 
Build Self-Esteem of Your Teen Customers 
Resell Consumers on Buying Used Items