Paris campaign shot from Vestiaire Collective.
Pre-owned luxury fashion marketplace Vestiaire Collective has launched a new localized service in South Korea. The move follows its acquisition of U.S retail marketplace Tradesy in May, a deal which gave the combined company an international membership community of 23 million with a gross merchandise value exceeding $1 billion.
The new launch gives the South Korean community access to Vestiaire Collective’s catalogue of 5 million items — 25,000 new pieces being added every day — plus access for the rest of the world to the wardrobes of South Korean sellers. The country is known for its distinct fashion point of view as evinced by the K-Pop and K-drama protagonists that have become an integral part of global popular culture.
On both sides, this means access to labels difficult to obtain outside of a particular local territory. Expect a new movement of ParKo —Parisian meets South Korean style. The move is also set to further democratize access to fashion globally while promoting sustainability and circularity.
“With its rapid growth and innovative multi-channel market, South Korea has such a great potential. We are very excited to enter this market today, expanding our seamless localized services and offering South Korean customers access to a huge global community of potential buyers and sellers,” said Vestiaire Collective CEO Max Bittner in a statement. “We expect this strategic launch to benefit other markets within the Asia-Pacific region.”
“South Korea is a very dynamic country leading global trends in tech, fashion and sustainability. Launching in South Korea not only enables us to meet the huge demand in the resale market, but also broadens the supply available to South Korean customers with our highly desirable international catalog,” added Vestiaire Collective Co-founder and president, Fanny Moizant.
According to Bain & Company, South Korea’s luxury market size amounts to some $15 billion, making it one of the world’s 10 largest markets for personal luxury goods. Following successful launches in Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong, this is the first time the platform is expanding a full-on localized service to Asia.
The fully localized service features Korean language throughout the site, local currency KRW payment and easy sign-up methods synced with local engines Naver and Kakao. As with the rest of the world, convenience store drop offs and local courier pick up come as standard.
Vestiaire Collective has also opened a local office in Seoul along with its fifth authentication center in after Tourcoing (France), New York, Hong Kong, and London.
Following several successful rounds of investments in 2021 including from Naver-backed Korelya Capital, Kering Group, Tiger Management Global and others, Vestiaire Collective became a unicorn company in March 2021. In September 2021, it became the first resale platform and first French unicorn to receive the coveted B Corp Certification.
In May 2022 Vestiaire Collective unveiled a 4500m2 low impact, high sustainability HQ in a refurbished Haussmannian building in Paris.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniehirschmiller/2022/07/27/french-unicorn-vestiaire-collective-launches-in-south-korea/