Fashion is a highly innovative industry, with new trends rolling out almost every season. It isn’t a surprise that a small business in the fashion industry can be highly profitable. Social media platforms like Instagram are the new business epicenter. Small companies have proven to be leaders in innovation, particularly when it involves re-engineering products or processes, and when trying fresh approaches.
Small organizations are often led by visionary product specialists or designers, particularly within the apparel industry. The tiny scale allows companies to be flexible, this is often crucial so as to adapt to very diverse market conditions and economic turbulence.
Small Businesses have opened up the world to a different dimension where fashion is concerned- thrifting. Thrift stores are shops that sell second-hand clothes and are often run for charitable purposes. The concept of thrifting came to light when people started de-cluttering during the pandemic, and suddenly had a tsunami of items that they would probably never use. Generating a platform for this market was a risky yet successful move.
The pandemic, which has decimated the sales of many small businesses, has been a boon for thrift stores across the country. Many of them have been seeing person after person after person dropping off everything from framed pictures to irons to lamps, not to mention the mountains and mountains of used clothes. According to thredUP, a major second-hand shopping site, the resale apparel market will grow from $28 billion to $64 billion in the next five years. Thrift shopping helps give way to newer fashion trends in the industry.
Thrifting is not only beneficial to people, but also to the environment. Fast fashion is the practice of making inexpensive clothes very quickly so retailers can be up-to-date with all the latest trends. It’s a highly disruptive industry for many reasons. Producing mass amounts of clothing requires tons of water, pollutes our natural waterways, and puts microfibers into our oceans that eventually enter our bodies when we eat seafood. Additionally, it produces tons of textile waste, generates greenhouse gas emissions, and deposits chemicals into our soil.
Shopping in thrift stores is a significantly more sustainable way to shop. When you choose second-hand over fast fashion, it decreases the demand and as a result, causes less pollution. Second-hand items don’t require more resources to produce- they’re already made!
Social Media sites like Instagram offer a platform to market these small businesses- for free! As Instagram is most popular among the youth, it helps gain the right traction towards the business. Millennials and Gen-Z are driving these numbers by shredding the last remnants of social embarrassment about pre-owned clothes. By frequenting thrift and consignment stores, this generation is remaking their image into trendy shopping destinations.
Recognizing that there is a market for thrifting, several millennials are using social media tools, particularly Instagram, to sell either what’s in their closet or to source second-hand clothes all from home, in a simple process that involves clicking a picture, commenting to book the product, and snapping it up by a digital transaction. As consumers drive trends, a platform like Instagram can facilitate meaningful dialogues on fashion.
As the fashion and design-centric industries undergo rapid change due to technology and changes in demand, businesses need to operate lean and be ready for sudden changes in the market. The rise of new trends in the fashion industry is inevitable- and small businesses play a pivotal role in it. Goes without saying that small could be the new big!
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