Zara to offer its secondhand clothes service in US by October

MADRID (Reuters) - Zara will offer its service for selling, repairing or donating secondhand clothes in the United States by the end of October as a way of prolonging their life cycle and reducing waste, its owner Inditex said on Wednesday.

Zara's 'Pre-Owned' platform is already running in 16 European countries, after launching in Britain in November 2022.

Inditex previously said it was committed to operating the platform in all strategic markets by 2025 as part of its strategy to also help reduce raw material consumption.

The service is available through Zara stores, its website and an app in countries including Spain, France and Germany.

Zara has not yet disclosed data on how many customers have used the service in the markets where it is available, but Inditex CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras said its online platforms receive more than 22 million visitors per day.

Other fast fashion retailers such as H&M also offer products for resale. Secondhand H&M items are available in the U.S. via a stand-alone website through a partnership with ThredUp.

Zara will also launch live shopping shows in the U.S., as well as other key markets such as Spain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Ireland and The Netherlands in the coming months, the Inditex CEO said after reporting first-half earnings.

Five-hour long live shopping shows in China, broadcast weekly on Douyin, TikTok's Chinese sister site, have helped boost Zara's sales since they launched in November, retail analytics firm EDITED said.

(Reporting by Corina Pons, editing by Andrei Khalip and Alexander Smith)