GOAT Group Buys Fashion Reseller Grailed

eCommerce fashion platform GOAT Group has agreed to acquire apparel reseller Grailed, combining their forces amid a projected boom in second-hand luxury sales.

The companies announced the cash and stock deal in a news release Monday (Oct. 17), noting that it creates a community of 50 million members in 170 countries.

Based in New York City, 9-year-old Grailed sells a curated collection of products from brands such as Gucci, Prada and Saint Laurent. GOAT Group previously invested in Grailed, contributing to the company’s $60 million Series B funding round last year.

Read more: Menswear Marketplace Grailed Notches $60M in GOAT Group-Led Round

The acquisition comes at a time when several luxury brands — Gucci, Burberry and Balenciaga among them — are entering the secondhand apparel space amid a surge in resale or reCommerce initiatives.

See more: Luxury Brands Take Second Look at Secondhand Sales

“Gucci retakes the No. 1 spot, while must-have bags and celebrity clout are driving Dior and Balenciaga up the charts,” designer resale platform The RealReal’s Luxury Resale Annual Report said in August, pointing to a 24% increase in demand for Gucci branded items over the past year that had pushed Louis Vuitton from the No. 1 spot.

But as PYMNTS noted in September, rather than allow third-party platforms to profit from surging demand for resale, both Gucci and Balenciaga have advanced their own reCommerce offerings as a service to keep those sales in-house.

PYMNTS’ Karen Webster predicted the rise of luxury retail earlier this year once it became apparent that inflation would continue to dominate the news.

“The smart luxury retailers will set aside their disdain for the democratizing of their luxury brand and use it as an entry point to build the next generation of brand loyalists — on their terms,” Webster wrote.

That prediction has become reality as luxury brands increasingly lean into resale. A report last month by The Wall Street Journal pointed to findings from Bain & Co. which say secondhand luxury sales would increase annually at around 15% over the next five years, double the anticipated rate of new sales.

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