How to Capitalize on the $2 Billion Clothing Rental Market

Clothing rental is a sustainable business model from both an environmental and a business standpoint. Shockingly, the fashion industry contributes 30 billion pounds of textile waste to landfills, with 80% of apparel being thrown away instead of reused. Beyond their environmental impact alone, apparel merchandisers should consider the economic impact of providing clothing rental or other re-commerce opportunities to customers. The global online clothing rental market size reached $2 billion in 2022, and is expected to reach $3.5 billion by 2028 — a CAGR of 9.78% during that time period.

Capitalizing on this growing market can be a challenge for traditional eCommerce merchandisers, particularly with a typical commerce platform. However, using a composable commerce strategy, it’s much simpler to run a rental model side-by-side with a traditional model.

For example, within Elastic Path’s business user tooling, Commerce Manager, merchandisers can set up a rental membership model for customers, and enable customers to keep up with what they’ve currently rented.

For example, Elastic Path client Vivrelle, a members-only club providing access to luxury designer handbags and accessories, has a rental model that requires tracking zero dollar transactions, designating membership-specific items in the product catalog, and offering tiered pricing. Commerce Manager makes it all possible.

Here’s how to set up a rental or tiered membership model in Elastic Path, leveraging product templates to drive behavior in the platform. It’s easy to set up tiered pricing, designate rental items in your product catalog, and more.

You can even turn off a rental product, update pricing, and merchandise it as a product for sale within your inventory — all with a click of a button.

Play Video