Understanding Japan's Dominant Luxury Resale Market

How trust, quality, and a savvy consumer base fuel its prominence in the world of fashion

This is the final installment in a three part series in celebration of the 2025 A/W Tokyo Fashion Week. Click here to read part one (how Japanese consumers began to prioritize luxury) and click here to read part two (a recap of my visit to Tokyo Fashion Week)

Marketplaces like Grailed, TheRealReal, Vestiaire Collective, etc have provided an eCommerce solution to finding more affordable and discontinued luxury clothing and accessories. These companies usually ship worldwide and connect both sides of a marketplace that might not have met otherwise. While these are definitely great options, savvy shoppers know that the deeper deals are coming from shopping in-person in another country. Japan’s luxury market has grown so large that it now has a massive resale market that’s attracting a flood of tourism from around the world.

Go on almost any social media platform and you’ll more than likely find recent videos of creators talking about their latest haul from Japan. Anything fashion related you could think of, you can find it there for much cheaper. Tokyo has places unlike we’ve ever seen in American cities en mass. In the neighborhood of Nakano, there’s a mall called Nakano Broadway. Step inside and you’ll see shops filled with collectible items, but the real treasure here are a dozen stores that sell incredibly unique watches from every brand; from Orient to Jaeger-LeCoultre to Audemars Piguet and everything in between, and within every price range you can think of. The Shibuya neighborhood gives us a store called Komehyo, a five floor shop where you can find everything from a vintage Gucci jacket from decades ago to a three year old Louis Vuitton x NBA backpack celebrating the league’s 75th anniversary. And in Harijuku, there are several smaller resale stores, including Amore Gentlemen. This is a personal favorite given that’s where I made my first luxury purchase - a green Louis Vuitton epi-leather weekender bag from the 90s for 20% of the original price. This doesn’t even come close to encompassing all the stores that are available in a city as sprawling as Tokyo, not to mention there’s also plenty of shops in Osaka and Kyoto. There’s a very high bar in terms of quality and most of these items are so lightly used, you wouldn’t be able to tell they’re pre-owned.

Cultural Practices Change Buying Habits

Like any other country, culture can and will heavily influence consumer habits. Japanese culture stresses respect at a foundational level, be it for another person, animal, or inanimate object. Mottainai is the conscious practice of avoiding waste, respecting resources, and utilizing things to their full potential. This practice has been in existence for hundreds if not thousands of years. In the 2010’s there was a slight shift in perspective and some people in Japan started to think that maybe they shouldn’t focus new, materialistic things to define their value in life. This forced people to not only use what they owned but also to encourage the act of selling things they didn’t find use of anymore instead of completely throwing them away.

A Safe Option for Travelers

The yen reached its 38-year low last year and only slightly rebounded, so customers are flocking to the Japan flagships of luxury brands to buy things they’ve had their eyes on for a much lower price. Brands have struggled to price SKUs correctly overseas with the volatility of the local currency and price sensitivity of customers as of late. But even with the “cheaper prices,” these items are still out of reach for most of the general population. The next best option is to go secondhand, but plenty of people are worried about buying used luxury products because they don’t want to end up with a fake. And product depending, counterfeits are getting harder and harder to spot, requiring someone with deep product knowledge to be able to tell the difference. I’ll be writing a much more in-depth article on this topic over the next few weeks, but Japan has incredibly serious counterfeit laws. Secondhand store owners stake their reputation that they only buy, carry, and sell authentic items from top brands. They go to heavily regulated auction houses to stock their inventory. Depending on the product, you also might get the original packaging it came in as well as the authentication papers/cards, which help retain the overall value in case you ever decide to part ways with it.

Why It’s Great for Brands

On the surface level it’s easy to assume that a hot resale market would start cannibalizing profits from new merchandise. While there’s always a chance of this happening, it’s not as common as you’d think. Resale markets actually give luxury brands a boost on several fronts. It allows the original buyer to clear out space in their closets, giving them the ability to buy more directly from the brand. People who normally couldn’t afford retail price can still take pride in owning something relatively new, or well kept vintage items that have still retained some kind of intrinsic value. These same cost-conscious consumers might enjoy having a particular brand so much that when their income increases (or they take the time to save up), they might find themselves buying directly from the brand. Finally, brands can unlock consumer insights and find styles/patterns that are still out in the wild/part of the zeitgeist to help them make the best design and strategic decisions for product development. All these actions help to boost the circular economy, helping to reduce waste across the value chain.

The longer the resale market continues to have demand, the more we as consumers continue to benefit. That bag/those sunglasses/that watch you’ve been eyeing might just pop up in the next few years at a fraction of the price, and will absolutely still look good. People view this differently, but long gone are the days where I cared about having something as soon as it’s released. If you’re in Japan anytime soon, feel free to reach out. I’d love to share any shopping (and eating) recommendations I have.