RESEARCHUsed apparel enters the Consumer Price Index
Secondhand clothing is now tracked inside the Consumer Price Index, a signal that used apparel has become large enough to move official inflation measurement. When a category earns a line in the CPI, it has stopped being a niche and started being economic infrastructure.
For the industry the milestone cuts two ways. It confers legitimacy that helps with brand deals and policy conversations. It also invites the scrutiny that comes with being measured: pricing, disposal, and labor practices become data points that regulators can watch over time.
PLATFORMSAI moves from feature to foundation in resale
Resale platforms are treating artificial intelligence as core infrastructure rather than a bolt-on, using it to automate listing, pricing, and authentication that historically required human labor per item, according to FashionUnited. The unit economics of managed resale have always turned on cost per item handled, and AI attacks exactly that line.
The winners will not be the platforms with the flashiest AI features but the ones that use it to drive authentication and processing cost down far enough that mid-priced inventory becomes profitable to handle. That threshold decides which categories resale can serve at all.
