Lululemon is promoting its resale program with pilates classes and partnerships
Lululemon is turning to more community events and influencer partnerships to raise awareness of its branded resale program, Like New.
At SXSW earlier this month, Lululemon and its resale partner, Archive, debuted a two-day pop-up called The Like New Edit. Held at the pilates studio Peach House in Austin, Texas, the activation included free fitness classes, sauna and cold plunge sessions, and a community run. Four local influencers curated collections of Like New clothing that attendees could purchase on the spot, and supplements brand AG1 supplied daily health drinks. Some fitness classes had waitlists of 300 people, according to Lululemon.
Like New is not new — it launched nationwide in 2022 after conducting a two-state pilot in 2021 — but Lululemon is hoping to build a larger following for the program and connect more with existing and new customers. As part of this, Lululemon is exploring holding more events for Like New so people can touch and feel the merchandise firsthand. It’s also updating its Like New website to include better search functionality, and it’s partnering with influencers and affiliates “to showcase the value of premium resale,” Maureen Erickson, svp of strategic enablement and new business at Lululemon, told Modern Retail.
“There is a lot of energy around Like New,” Erickson said. “We’ve scaled across the U.S. and are continuing to build the business, in terms of awareness. … We’re exploring new ways to engage our community, both online and in person, to drive continued visibility and engagement for the program.” She added that, after SXSW, the brand is “already thinking about where to bring a bespoke, elevated Like New experience next.”
Like New runs on a trade-in model. To participate, people bring their gently-used Lululemon leggings and sweatshirts into a store for Lululemon to resell online. In exchange, they receive store credit from $5-$25, depending on the item. Lululemon says it reinvests 100% of profits from Like New into the Apparel Impact Institute’s Fashion Climate Fund.
Lululemon considers Like New a complement to its full-price business. Like New is part of Lululemon’s circularity efforts, and “it allows our product to live out its full potential,” Erickson said. The program also helps Lululemon hold onto market share otherwise absorbed by third-party resale platforms. As Erickson put it, “Like New allows us to keep guests in our ecosystem.”
Lululemon declined to provide growth statistics or revenue for Like New, but the company as a whole reported $2.4 billion in net revenue for its third fiscal quarter ending in October 2024.
Like New has undergone changes since its initial debut. The program relaunched in February under Archive, a software platform that powers resale for some 50 brands, including Dr. Martens and Hanna Andersson. Before that, Lululemon partnered with another third-party provider, Trove.
Emily Gittins, co-founder and CEO at Archive, told Modern Retail that events like Lululemon’s Austin activation help shoppers see the value of secondhand. Many SXSW attendees encountered Like New for the first time at the event and subsequently purchased pieces on site or in the following days, she said.
“The ability to buy secondhand through a brand is still so new that it’s really helpful to do these activations, which allow people to … physically touch the product,” Gittins said. That’s important, she said, “especially for secondhand, where sometimes there’s some stigma around: Is this going to be high quality or not?” Gittins said customers were excited by the inventory and that the SXSW activation “had an impact on sales.”
Lululemon’s Erickson added that one goal with the SXSW pop-up was to “reinforce that resale can be just as elevated as new.”
While many shoppers are familiar with peer-to-peer resale channels like Poshmark and Depop, brand-owned resale is catching on more slowly. But, more brands like Lululemon are trying to incentivize shoppers to buy resale with trade-in programs. According to ThredUp’s latest Resale Report, released on Wednesday, 47% of consumers said they are more likely to make a first-time purchase with a brand if that brand offers credit for trading in used apparel, up 25 points from 2023.
Juan Pellerano-Rendón, CMO at e-commerce logistics startup Swap, told Modern Retail that brands are wise to “reclaim their resale market” after seeing the success of third-party platforms. There are both environmental and revenue benefits to bringing resale in-house, he explained. “Owning the resale market lets brands ensure quality, extend product lifecycles and capture more value from each item,” he said.
Resale as a whole is becoming a larger part of the retail ecosystem. ThredUp expects the global secondhand apparel market to reach $367 billion by 2029, outpacing the overall global apparel market. It also estimates that new shoppers will account for 60% of secondhand spend by 2029 and that people ages 18-44 will account for 68% of secondhand spend over the next five years.
In this changing environment, Lululemon is “building a new playbook” for growing branded resale online and offline, Archive’s Gittins said. “What’s great about Lululemon is that they’re very far along in building their resale business, and they’re now trailblazing this new playbook for how to … think about multi-channel ways to engage the shopper,” she said.