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This article at Bloomberg claims that "...new clothes are becoming as cheap as used ones, and poor countries are turning their backs on the secondhand trade". It also says that "...The tide of secondhand clothes keeps growing even as the markets to reuse them are disappearing." However, the article provides no direct evidence for this claim such as a survey of clothing prices over time. Instead, it focuses on a single company in India that makes blankets from recycled materials. On a discussion board about the article, there are anecdotal claims that thrift stores are actually thriving and that clothes prices are not going down.

Are retail store clothes prices dropping significantly enough to impact the used clothing market?

Andrew Grimm
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Moby Disk
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  • Are you talking about first-world retail prices or third-world retail prices? – Christian Jan 19 '18 at 14:40
  • Evidence of either one would be valuable in corroborating the point the article is making. – Moby Disk Jan 19 '18 at 17:15
  • Note that this has already happened long ago with pre-cut suits. –  Apr 29 '18 at 16:00
  • Not really different from the [used bicycle market](https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/18363/depreciation-and-second-hand-markets-for-bicycles). – Daniel R Hicks Apr 30 '18 at 12:12
  • I wanted a quick sanity check. Are clothes becoming cheaper? I found a site that graphs various CPI measures (which is an imperfect proxy for how much a dress costs, but it's a start). [Most of the measurements are flat](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=jF6y) (i.e. slowly becoming cheaper in real terms) but the UK one is dropping like a stone - its inconsistency with Europe makes me wonder if there is something else going on here. – Oddthinking May 01 '18 at 01:38

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