Ireland has had a tenuous relationship with the resale market. The idea of taking someone else’s hand-me-downs has proven a difficult pill for most Irish consumers to swallow. Sociologists, at a push, might link it back to a hangover from our famine days and the poor houses, but whatever reason, attitudes are definitely changing.

The importance of environmental concerns has made second-hand socially acceptable and designer resale has shown itself to be a strong contender in the marketplace. Sites such as Vestiaire and Poshmark have made sustainability chic, while closer to home Siopaella has emerged as a market leader.

Founded by Canadian-born Ella De Guzman in 2011, Siopaella specialises in authenticated designer goods. From Hermès Birkin’s worth €20, 000 to rare vintage Chanel coats, they offer designer products authenticated in-house by De Guzman herself.

“As a teenager I was consigning things in order to buy CDs or gas for my car. Even back then, buying and selling was what I did as a lifestyle. When I’d buy things I’d think about selling them on again. I never saw things as throw away. It was engrained in me.”

Falling for Limerick man Steve Ryan brought De Guzman to Ireland on a girlfriend’s visa in 2010. “When I moved here I couldn’t work for a year and visited charity shops on Camden Street where I’d find a €200 pair of jeans for a fiver and think I need to resell this to make money but there was nowhere you could do that. So Siopella was born.”

One small shop on Crowe Street grew into four retail outlets in the capital, two in Temple Bar and two on Wicklow Street.

“If you’re a small business and you do it right you can do really well if you can engage with a loyal customer base.”

Before the pandemic hit, the global resale market was on track to double from $24 billion in 2019 to $51 billion by 2024, according to a report from Thredup and GlobalData, a retail analytics firm.

Add Covid-19 into the mix and changes that were already afoot in retail are accelerating rapidly.

Consumer spending has moved online and people are turning to their closets as a source of additional income, while others are steering away from buying new clothes and instead searching for preloved clothing. Consumers are prioritising value further fuelling the shift to thrift.

The impact of a lockdown

Entrepreneur Ella De Guzman

Lockdown forced the temporary closure of all four Siopaella stores, two of which were new leases.

“I’m superstitious to the point that I put a coin in all the purses we sell because I believe if you put a coin in someone’s wallet they’ll never be poor,” says De Guzman. “There were so many signs not to do the deal on Wicklow Street. The leases were €80,000 a year for 10 years. They’re big leases and we did two of them.

“We signed a day apart with two different landlords. One of the properties flooded during the lease negotiation. That would have been the time to get the heck out of there, right? A ceiling collapsed. An air conditioning unit, weighing 100lb, fell on the ground. If someone was standing under it they would have died. All the signs were there not to go for it. But we did and then the pandemic hit and we got hammered.”

With bills to pay and few options, De Guzman and Ryan packed their Volkswagen Touareg with as much stock as they could fit and moved the entire business online, operating from their thatched cottage in Wexford.

Using social media they tapped into the live feature on Instagram to showcase a new consignment of Charlotte Tilbury make-up. The response was overwhelming. Even though there’s very little profit margin on half-price lipsticks they were answering queries from customers until the early hours of the next day. De Guzman’s natural ease on-camera engaged her community and inspired purchases across the site from handbags to to clothes to jewellery.

“Even during the last recession luxury retail never really floundered. We have had a demand for Louis Vuitton’s Neverfull tote since the day I opened my doors and that hasn’t changed in nine years.”

In the past, resale sites have benefitted from flash sales with a built-in countdown to lure consumers with their scarcity and newness, but today it’s a sense of community in the digital world that is proving the real draw. De Guzman offers her followers a behind-the-scenes look at the resale industry, tips on authenticating goods and spotting fakes, all while creating a platform where her community interact with one another.

“At one point we had over 700 people watching my Insta Lives. What’s happening through the pandemic is people are really starting to look at the micro level and I know a lot of brands are doing that as well. [Beauty brand] Glossier have a dedicated group of 1,000 customers that they chat to but you have to be an exclusive customer. If you’re a small business and you do it right you can do really well if you can engage with a loyal customer base. I think that’s what I did when I was starting out in the business and feel like I lost my way a bit over the last couple of years.”

The online strategy is paying off. Website sales are up approximately 253 per cent compared to the same period last year and the couple plan to further commercialise their website. However,

the physical shops are suffering with sales down 97 per cent and the couple made the difficult decision to permanently close their two Temple Bar locations. The future of the Wicklow Street properties remain uncertain.

“Yesterday we had four staff in the shop and they took in €25. The day before that the sales were €200. That’s not sustainable. Right now, we just have to have the doors open if consigners want to drop in. Some people are still wary of couriers so it’s become a drop off hub and the government is subsidising the staff’s wages right now. If they weren’t doing that it would have been better just to close. It’s an uncertain future for the brick and mortar, but I know online is working.”

After receiving a consignment of designer bags worth €20,000, De Guzman hit her stride, sharing the new deliveries across her social platforms. “We sold 63 items in one day. We’d never done that before even across the four shops. And that was in two hours.”

Beauty stock crops up occasionally, when a trusted consigner (usually a member of the beauty press) does a clear out, but it’s designer handbags that drive the business and De Guzman prides herself on her expertise in authentication, leaning on her training in cultural anthropology to draw out counterfeit dealers.

“Before the crisis we were getting at least one fake every two days. I screen them. I check every bag. It’s about the thought and feeling and how you connect with people. I can tell a liar face-to-face. One girl came in with six high-end bags with price tags on them and I knew straight away she was carrying stolen goods. I asked her where she got them and she said her boyfriend got them for her but threw out the receipts. I refused to take them. I just didn’t feel comfortable. I interview all my clients because I’m not going to sell stolen merchandise.

“We have a lot of Birkins and Kellys and unless you’re spending 100k a year in Hermès you can’t get access to them. We have bags that are worth 16–20k. No one’s going after the super luxury right now, but at the same time it’s a great time to buy super luxury because the prices have gone down. A Birkin that would have traded for €13,000 could probably be bought for €10,000 now. We had a Kelly we normally would have sold for 9k and we sold it for 6k. The seller was just happy to receive less because she knew what was happening in the market. It’s a really good time to buy if you’ve got the money because that price has gone down quite substantially.

“Even during the last recession luxury retail never really floundered. We have had a demand for Louis Vuitton’s Neverfull tote since the day I opened my doors and that hasn’t changed in nine years. Neither has the demand for Chanel’s Classic Flap bag. I can’t keep them in store. There’s always going to be a demand for luxury bags. The demand for mid-range bags will be more tricky over the next few months, but your super luxury like Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermès there’s always going to be a big demand for them.”

The current crisis is rapidly impacting shopping behaviours, and when every euro counts, second-hand will be far more attractive. Even royalty is getting on board. The UK’s Princess Beatrice recently demonstrated the value of preloved clothing by wearing her grandmother’s hand-me-down dress on her wedding day.

Upcycling probably isn’t quite the right word for a ballgown worn by the Queen, but technically that’s what Princess Beatrice has done – a decision that will no doubt inspire many others to consider more ethical and financially-restrained avenues in order to refresh their closets in the future. When they do, Siopaella will be waiting.