Zalando Brings Pre Owned Kidswear to 14 European Countries as Resale Market Grows

Zalando is extending its pre owned fashion offer to kids’ wear. It is launching quality checked second hand kids’ clothing and accessories across 14 European markets. This is a move that ties circular fashion more tightly to family shopping habits.

New Kids’ Resale Offer

Through its Pre owned category, Zalando now lets parents buy like new baby, kids, and teen clothing. They can also trade in outgrown items for Zalando credit in 14 countries, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. The offer runs on a C2B2C model. Customers sell gently used kids’ items back to Zalando, which then resells them after in house quality checks.

Parents don’t need to photograph or individually list items. Instead, Zalando manages inspection, listing, and pricing, with payment made via gift vouchers redeemable on any purchase, including pre owned. The children’s assortment sits in a dedicated Second hand tab alongside existing women’s and men’s pre owned sections. It covers everything from babywear to teen sizing.

Convenience and Quality Focus

Alice Marshall, Director of Pre Owned at Zalando, said, “Customers can shop for a premium pre-owned winter coat and a new pair of sneakers in one go, with the confidence that every piece has been hand-inspected for quality and they can easily and conveniently sell clothes back to Zalando.” She emphasized that expanding into kids second hand clothing and accessories brings this convenience to the whole family.

Zalando’s in house team checks each garment to ensure it is good as new or lightly used before it goes live. This aims to distinguish the offer from uncurated peer to peer marketplaces. That curated approach has already driven strong performance in adult pre owned. Up to 50% of adult pre owned pieces sell within 24 hours. This number rises to 90% for premium brands. Adult pre owned sales have doubled in recent years.

Kids & Family Strategy

Veronika Moles, Commercial Director Kids at Zalando, said that “Our Kids & Family customers are among our most loyal and frequent shoppers. They are looking for quality, trust, and ease. We are truly addressing a customer pain point by helping parents declutter as children outgrow their clothes so quickly. We also know that time is really scarce for parents, so we support them by letting them cover all of their needs in one destination: they can now shop for new and pre-owned, adult and children’s fashion and lifestyle products in one place.”

In 2025, more than 40% of Zalando orders were mixed baskets, with customers buying pre owned items alongside new fashion or beauty products in a single checkout. Extending pre owned into kidswear is meant to deepen that household relationship and evolve the Kids category into a holistic family hub rather than a standalone vertical.

Brands and Circular Goals

The kids’ pre owned offer includes second hand items from brands such as Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Next, Lego Kidswear, Bisgaard, Boss Kidswear, Stella McCartney Kids, and Moschino. All appear within an integrated second hand kids’ wear section. In that section, users can browse by size, brand, or category, much like a new product.

​The move builds on its pre owned launch in 2020 as part of a broader circularity strategy aimed at extending product life and optimizing resource use. For families, it creates a more streamlined way to keep wardrobes turning over as children grow, while recapturing value through store credit and reducing the effort typically tied to resale.

This expansion is another clear signal: large platforms are scaling resale not as a side project but as an integrated, loyalty driven service that links kidswear, adult fashion, and lifestyle purchasing into a single, circular ecosystem.