Millennials Follow Uber with New Fashion Trading Model

May 28, 2015

Battered by student loan debt and the Great Recession, Millennials place less emphasis on owning and more on sharing, bartering and trading to access coveted goods.

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For Millennials — the roughly 77 million Americans born between about 1980 and 2000 — the allure of "no ownership" is moving beyond housing and cars.
A new industry based on sharing or renting clothing, electronics and small appliances is springing up from nothing about five years ago, posing a disruptive force to traditional retailers.

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Now these "NOwners," as Jamie Gutfreund, chief marketing officer for Deep Focus, calls them, are propelling a new wave of privately-held companies such as children's resale marketplaces Kidizen and Yerdle, which allow customers to swap or buy smaller-ticket items like used clothes and household goods. Deep Focus does market research on youth trends.

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Highland Capital Partners, which has more than $2 billion under management, has invested in a number of businesses including Rent the Runway and ThredUp, an online fashion resale shop, which focus on Millennials and the shared economy, said Dan Nova, a partner.  

http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/millennials-follow-uber-with-new-fashion-trading-model