Epson Takes a Tip From Apparel Retail With New Secondhand Play

With clothing and footwear brands increasingly turning to resale programs to reach cost-conscious consumers and drive loyalty, Epson is noting the opportunity to apply a similar strategy in the printing and scanning space, expanding its refurbishing program.

The company announced Wednesday (Feb. 14) its new “Epson Certified ReNew” program, selling quality-checked refurbished products via the brand’s site.

“With the Epson Certified ReNew Customer Promise, we ensure every product is brought to a like-new state, backing it up with the same warranty as any new product,” Mike Isgrig, vice president of Epson America’s consumer division, said in a statement. “The Epson Certified ReNew program underscores the importance of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle.’ Helping support a circular economy and keeping products out of landfills is a win-win-win for consumers, Epson and the environment.”

The news comes as brands increasingly launch resale programs. After all, if consumers are already buying their products secondhand, brands may as well capture the sale and own the transaction data.

For instance, New Balance recently announced its new “Reconsidered” resale hub, enabling consumers to trade in pre-owned shoes for vouchers. Not only does the brand benefit from the resale of these products, but it also keeps the original owners loyal to the company, incentivizing further purchasing.

Plus, Amazon recently shared that luxury resale website Hardly Ever Worn It is launching a storefront at Amazon in Europe, extending the eCommerce giant’s reach to include high-end secondhand products.

Certainly, demand for pre-owned items is high. According to the January edition of the PYMNTS Intelligence Consumer Inflation Sentiment Report, “Consumers Shop Secondhand Stores as Often as Other Retail,” which draws from a census-balanced survey of more than 2,300 U.S. consumers, 43% of consumers purchased a secondhand product in 2023, with high-income shoppers disproportionately likely to make such purchases. Plus, 19% of consumers said they increased their secondhand purchasing during the year.

Among those who made such purchases, more than half bought clothing and accessories. By shopping secondhand, the report noted, consumers saved 30-35% on average. Notably, however, only 15% of those who bought secondhand products in 2023 did so via resale marketplaces. A plurality did so at local marketplaces or stores or community events.

The appeal of cutting costs by purchasing secondhand will likely only continue as consumers’ financial challenges remain. The PYMNTS Intelligence study “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report: The Pessimism About Pay Rises Offsets the Effect of Falling Inflation,” which is based on a survey of more than 4,300 U.S. consumers, found that 83% are at least somewhat concerned about current and near-future economic conditions.

Additionally, resale marketplaces present loyalty-building opportunities.

“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,” PYMNTS’ Karen Webster observed in a 2022 feature. “I think they’ll do that by creating their own closed-loop marketplaces for those goods and use payments as the engine to do it. In the process, they’ll also change the shopping dynamic and frequency for how people buy couture clothes.”