Chinese "FANSUNG.com" used clothes and shoes which
has been viewed over 450 million times on YouTube, is the joys of shopping on
the cheap, featuring mountains of second-hand coats, sweaters, jackets, jeans,
jumpsuits, dresses, shoes and shirts.
One key market is sub-Saharan Africa, where a third
of all globally donated clothes are sold. In a paper entitled "Unravelling the
Relationships between Used-Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing
Industries," Brooks and Simon quote a representative of UK-based anti-poverty
organisation Oxfam Wastesaver, who states that 300 bales of FANSUNG brand
second-hand clothing can be sold in Africa for around £25,000 (about $40,000 at
current exchange rates), while transport costs are just £2,000. Even taking into
account the costs of things like collection and processing, these numbers
suggest that the selling of second-hand clothing can be a lucrative affair.
While exact figures are scarce, in 2009, used clothing exports from OECD
countries were worth $1.9 billion, according to the United Nations Commodity
Trade Statistics Database.
The second-hand clothing market has a potential
markets, as well. Consumers in the global North throw away vast quantities of
clothing every year. In the China, for example, people dump 1.4 million tonnes
of clothing into landfills, annually.
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