Pangaia's digital passports make reselling clothing as easy as scanning a QR code

Resale has taken flight in the fashion industry, from consumers selling on peer-to-peer platforms to labels opening dedicated secondhand stores. Joining the fray with an innovative twist is sustainability-minded Pangaia. With its new Pangaia ReWear program, the brand aims to make it easier than ever for customers to resell the items they no longer wear. 

A few years ago, Pangaia started adding QR codes to every garment's care label. Now, users can scan those codes to prefill the details of whatever they want to sell on Pangaia ReWear. (If a product doesn't have a QR code, they can fill in the details manually.) The system then recommends a price based on the item's condition and original value, but users can also select to set their own price within a given range. Currently, most listed items are offered at 50% of the original retail price.

Once a buyer receives their purchase, sellers can choose to be paid in cash, in which case they'll receive 70% of the resale price, or in Pangaia credit to receive 100% to be used toward their next purchase. Pangaia ReWear is powered by Archive, which facilitates fashion resale for brands from The North Face to Oscar De La Renta, and by EON, which created the digital passports that Pangaia's garment QR codes are linked to. In addition to simplifying the listing process, EON's Digital IDs also verify the authenticity of a product.

Pangaia ReWear, which is the first digital passport-enabled resale platform, is launching in the UK, with rollout to other countries in the works.