Patagonia Sells Used Clothes and Gear—Thanks to eBay

Introducing Gearzilla’s The Future of Gear, a new column that will highlight some of the coolest trends in the outdoor and travel gear industry, profile industry leaders and their ground-breaking ideas, and preview some of the best new product slated to hit the market in the coming months.

Apparel and gear manufacturer Patagonia recently introduced the sale of used product on their web store.  Part of the company’s Community Threads Initiative—which encourages consumers to buy only what they need, repair what breaks, share what they no longer need, and recycle everything else—this move continues to promote the company’s robust pro-environment identity.

The new feature displays product that’s on sale on eBay within patagonia.com’s Used Clothing and Gear section, filtered by gender and product type, as well as kid’s gear.  Interacting with the specific products takes you to eBay itself, which handles product fulfillment in its typical fashion (Patagonia also includes instructions on how to sell your used product, aping the step-by-steps that lets you sell stuff on eBay.)

From a business perspective, they could potentially erode the sale of some of their latest and greatest (regularly priced) product by promoting the same stuff at half the cost. But there’s no real overhead for Patagonia, either; eBay’s auctioneers handle all the specifics of each sale while Patagonia product stays in the hands (and on the backs) of happy travelers and lovers of the outdoors, boosting brand loyalty. The play also reinforces the durability story of the brand and serves as a solid platform to promote their pledge to reduce the environmental footprint implicit in gear and apparel manufacturing—a pledge we encourage you all to take.

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