In a sun-drenched Patagonia store in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, just a stone’s throw from the company’s head office, a steady stream of customers browse both new and secondhand clothing. This is the latest experiment for the retailer of outdoor recreation clothing and equipment, and one it hopes could be the way of the future.
In many ways, this is a natural continuation of Patagonia’s “Worn Wear” initiative, which encourages people to trade in and buy used products. But committing physical retail space to secondhand goods is a more recent push.
“We want that to be the fastest growing part of our business,” Marty Pomphrey, general manager of Patagonia Japan, said of the secondhand section during a recent interview at the company’s Japan headquarters. “We want to normalize the idea of having used products be something you want to buy.”
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