The rental fashion market is swiftly making its way into the fashion industry. As more buyers have become more conscious about their shopping habits, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that leading players in the accessory sector are willing to dip their toes in the streaming water. Another factor that propels the growth of rental services in the industry is the issue of overproduction. The bags designing software, a customization solution, enables bag brands and retailers to shoot two birds with one arrow as it empowers buyers to design their handbags that suits their fashion sense and comfort and allow fashion houses to track the amount of production, hence helping in balancing business growth and catering to the environmental needs.

Women Handbag Design Tool Allows Accessories Companies to Lead with Digital Solutions

As discussed, the fashion industry is growing and thriving, and therefore, renting a designer handbag has become more popular than ever. According to reports, the luxury rental industry is predicted to reach $2.8 billion by 2025, thanks to both a shift in consumer thinking and a push for a more sustainable approach to fashion. Fashionistas have found a new way to try out different brands and styles without purchasing them first. And since everyone loves designer bags and paying premium prices for them for a night seems too much, renting may be a good option for buyers who want to show their fashion sense without spending too much. As Christmas is approaching, it will be interesting to watch how brands and retailers lure in more buyers to let them stroll into their stores and browse through various products on the website. The basic psychology principle that helps brands entice their buyers is that the designer bags are so beautiful to look at that these accessory items become a craving point for many shoppers. The product's unique quality of carrying a status, culture, and the opportunity for styling self-expression, practical or not, helps the owner set themselves apart. Luxury bags have traditionally enhanced social belonging, and it has become a lot easier for consumers to associate with a group. Thus, if more brands commence to rent their designer bags, more buyers will have access to the 'luxury self' or luxury identity without the burden of the purchase price. It is undoubtful that the rental fashion segment has a bright future, especially when you buyers, such as Gen Z and millennials, are willing to experiment with brands they follow, bring in more flexibility to their lifestyle and seek high-quality fashion items. The rental fashion market offers even more luxury to buyers as they have the option to play with styles, colors, fits, and brands without being worried about the heavy price tag, and everyone loves choices.

Handbags are one most popular accessories segments of the fashion industry; however, their purchase numbers decrease once a product has been sold out. These situations help brands continue earning with one product as customers will have more choices to match their weekends' looks and return it without the big investment. Brands and retailers, too, can make more money by putting their money on a product and renting it out to buyers to make their money back. Rental handbags are becoming more normalized and continue to flourish in the coming days. The rental model has certainly been a favorable option, especially over lockdown as buyers flick between styles. According to experts, the market has also opened up to rental membership services; therefore, we see membership model businesses as the future of sustainable and community-driven commerce. Ultimately, the future is where everyone is sharing a 'cloud' closet. The brands must work together to create a holistic sense of community with rentals, including the physical spaces for the shoppers willing to step out and become more inclusive to reach a wider audience. For brands such as Vivrelle, the membership model has shown significant growth as customers look for the flexibility that goes with their new hybrid lifestyle between work and travel. As personal style and preferences constantly change in the fashion industry, the luxury rental market is the best bet handbags manufacturers, and retailers must ask for. It helps them constantly evolve and adapt to the ever-changing wardrobes and styles. The opportunity to swap or rent out your luxury handbags is clearly an option to consider alongside resale.

Let us dive a little deeper to understand the factors behind the rising use of rental services in the fashion market:

People Becoming More Cautious

Modern-day shoppers are well aware of the damages done by various fashion and luxury brands. The constant climate summits and forcing various governments to take action are a few of the effects to show how serious the new generation is about sustainability than their previous generation. They are vigilant of every brand's social and environmental impact activities. Consumers are becoming more conscious overproduction of a bag and throwing away its unsold batches is challenging for brands; hence, they need to initiate measures and counter the narrative of focusing only on profits and caring less for the planet. Digital brands, such as threadUP and Fashionphile, are changing fashion companies' landscape and helping them reconnect with audiences by offering conscious fashion products. These two brands have successfully satisfied the two biggest demands of shoppers, and as a result, they are frequently seen with new styles while maintaining their stance for "conscious consumers."

Suffice to say; we're living in a golden age of sorts for resale, projected to reach $41 billion by 2022, according to thredUP. Fashionphile, a similar online fashion resale website specializing in women's luxury items, is on track to sell $200 million worth of goods in 2019, up 50 per cent from a year ago. With that comes the concept of 'renting' or testing out a designer handbag. Specifically, some of the biggest consignment companies, including Rebag and Fashionphile, offer six-month buy-back programs. On a slightly different ground, the handbag design online works as it allows your brands to become more sustainable with its customization and digitization features. It helps buyers add any text, image, or anything and play with its fabric, style, and many other features. The tool helps companies to track their products as brands will only manufacture what precisely has been ordered by the customer in real-time.

Resale Gaining Traction in the Fashion Industry

With the rising sustainability concerns among buyers, some buyers want to make slight changes in their bags and throwing them away would make things work; hence, they are also attracted to recycling their bags by reselling them through a variety of programs and incentives that continue to make shopping more exciting and enticing. Many emerging brands, such as Depop, have started their own league of offering second-hand products and they are no more looked down upon. Instead, they have managed to unearth a few vintage dresses and rare designer bags and displayed them to their customers. The phenomenon was instantly picked up and compelled many leading brands to revamp their business strategy and invest in something that offers more to nature. Depop's success lies in the fact that it fused this idea with the feeling of community created by social media, resulting in a resale platform with over 29 million users across 147 different countries. Of those, 10.5 million are in the UK, and most are under 26, with some even turning reselling into a career (see our feature, page 58). Seeing the success of the budding companies, leading names in the fashion market, such as Kering, invested in luxury bag rental subscription service Cocoon. Kering's support will allow Cocoon to scale and invest in headcount, logistics and tech development "to improve the member journey and create a frictionless experience for the community".

Cocoon already provides its customers memberships from various brands, including Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Dior, Bottega Veneta, and Balenciaga. The resale and rental concepts are more preferred by the younger audiences, especially Gen Z, who prefer buying second-hand products because fashion is about confidence, and they won't associate with brands that are damaging the planet. Therefore, Etsy bought the second-hand fashion app for a whopping $1.6 billion in a bid to target younger Gen-Z shoppers. Fashion houses are leaving no stones unturned to lure in more modern buyers. Rental and resale services enable young customers to speak for themselves and revive their fashion sense by helping buyers unleash their creativity while simultaneously enabling brands to run the business on full-scale through laptops or phones. It offers a platform where buyers and brands can connect and create friendships. Social media offers a big helping hand for companies to spread the word, and it allows your users as well to compare various platforms with convenience.

Digital Technologies Helping Luxury brands to Pivot Game Plans

The meaning of fashion is changed a lot over the years. With renting, reselling, and sharing becoming the norm in the industry, the way brands and retailers display their collections has also changed. With the onset of digital technology through 3d software, designers can build a true-to-life product that can be visualized and simulated to appear real. And with the acceleration of the metaverse in the fashion industry, customers are now able to lean more towards digital art. These virtual solutions also help brands display their ideas to customers before putting them out in a showroom. They can use these technologies to educate buyers about their upcoming collection lines, and customers can share their reviews and rent them in real-time. For instance, Louis Vuitton partnered with the long-running multiplayer game League of Legends, which included both a physical clothing capsule collection as well as in-game designer skins. A year later, Valentino, Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui all released in-game outfits in Animal Crossing, whilst Givenchy Beauty and Gillette provided in-game beauty customizations.

The gaming industry is helping designer brands to spawn innovation and seed virtual fashion demand among buyers, from the basics of picking a hair color & style of the infamous Nintendo Wii Mii's right through to Apple Memoji's and customizing villagers in Animal Crossing. The industry's growing interest in the fashion sector, especially with high-end brands, is also enabling them to expand their business using gaming and e-sports to market their products through in-game items and wider brand partnerships.

Wrapping Up-

Handbag rental is showing no sign of stopping, and more customers are drawn towards sustainable benefits associated with it, along with lower prices and variety available. It offers a streamlined approach to reducing waste and offers a circulatory model that damages less nature and offers more options to customers to experiment. The bags designing software by iDesigniBuy allows brands and retailers to capitalize on the rental services along with customization and digitization solutions so that your buyers are free to play with the product's shape, style, fabric and any print with top-not quality. Its features allow brands to align better with sustainable measures. Buyers and brands can virtually connect with one another and create exceptional designs that are unique and cause no harm to the planet.

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Author's Bio: 

Vivek Ghai has over 18 years of experience in the software services industry. He is the founder of a software company specializing in web and mobile application development. He has hands-on experience in operations, digital and ecommerce, digital marketing and business development in the technology industry. He advises start-ups and also is a technical co-founder for a few of them.