Resale is becoming fully integrated into luxury consumers’ lifestyles— both as the first place to look for gently used, pre-loved items and as a key part of the decision-making process before paying full price for something new. Shoppers increasingly want to know whether a new luxury fashion purchase will hold its value and whether they’ll get their money’s worth once they’re finished with it. Until now, they’ve had no reliable way to answer those questions.

Croissant is closing that information gap. The online platform provides full transparency between the firsthand luxury prices and the eventual resale value. It gives shoppers confidence to make that firsthand purchase on the platform and remain in the Croissant ecosystem through its guaranteed buyback feature, rather than consigning items to a separate resale platform like The RealReal, Thredup, or Vestiaire Collective. 

The timing couldn’t be better. The secondhand luxury market is growing by leaps and bounds, while the primary market is contracting. That dynamic turns resale-value transparency into a new competitive edge in luxury retail. Nearly half of consumers say the potential resale value is an important factor when purchasing new fashion items, rising to 64% among younger generations, according to Thredup.

Luxury brands, including Alexander McQueen, Derek Lam and Missoni, and luxury retailers, such as Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Shopbop and Mytheresa, are already on board with Croissant’s value-added solution, which can kickstart new luxury purchases while helping shoppers actively participate in the circular fashion market. 

Value Shift

The market for secondhand fashion goods is growing three-times faster than the firsthand market, according to BCG. However, the latest results from The RealReal, the world’s top online marketplace for pre-loved luxury goods, suggest that the luxury fashion resale segment may well be growing at a much faster clip.

The RealReal ended 2025 with a 16% increase in the gross merchandise value of products sold, and in the fourth quarter, GMV grew even faster, up 22% year-over-year. This compares to a firsthand luxury goods market that declined by 2% last year, dropping from $422 billion (€364 billion) to $415 billion (€358 billion) in 2025, according to Bain. 

Among the challenges luxury brands faced last year was an approximate 5% decline in active luxury customers. Many checked out of the primary luxury market by shifting to discount channels—luxury outlet sales grew by up to 3%—and resale, like The RealReal, which reported a 9% increase in active buyers last year. 

Luxury Goods As An Asset Class

The Croissant platform integrates resale value into the firsthand buying equation, delivering never-before-available transparency to consumers when making a new purchase and allowing them to more easily tap the resale value without stepping outside its ecosystem. 

Croissant founder and CEO John Howard calls it “intentional commerce”—a way for people to think of what’s in their closet as an asset that retains value and about new purchases as adding to their holdings. 

“We’ve built an ecosystem that works. Shoppers love unlocking value by buying better. Brands love acquiring customers who think long-term,” he said.

It took someone outside the fashion realm—Howard hails from financial services, including eight years with KKR—to view luxury items as an asset class and integrate that potential asset value into the buying equation.

“Of course, there is depreciation, but too often consumers focus on the outlay of money when making a purchase, rather than having a comprehensive view of their financial picture, especially when buying better quality things that retain value in some pretty powerful ways,” he shared.

The genesis of Croissant came during the Covid pandemic when he was living in London and all the coffee shops closed down. He needed to buy an espresso machine to satisfy his caffeine cravings. After doing his research, he settled on a Breville Barista model for £750 with a U.K.-compatible plug. But just a few months later, KKR called him back to New York so he listed it on Facebook Marketplace and, to his amazement, sold it for £675. 

“When I was first considering that purchase, all I thought about was the money I was laying out—I’d have to brew a lot of espresso to pay that back. I didn’t think about the fact that I was acquiring a value-retaining asset. If I’d considered that at the beginning of the purchase journey, I would have thought about it completely differently,” he observed.

Looking into his wife’s closet, he saw the same value-retaining assets and took the idea to his mentor and KKR co-founder George Roberts, who gave him $12 million to get Croissant off the ground in 2022.

Proof Of Concept

Shoppers immediately got the Croissant concept. “Purchasing higher quality goods that retain value is the smartest financial and lifestyle decision—but hasn’t been adequately incentivized to date. Croissant connects those dots,” Howard explained.

Shoppers onboard to the Croissant platform by downloading the mobile shopping app or installing the Safari or Chrome shopping extension on desktop. After that, shoppers can sync their Gmail accounts and have Croissant’s AI assistant scan their inbox to find qualifying purchases for resale credit or customers can forward receipts for past purchases to learn their resale value.

Croissant guarantees resale prices on existing and new things purchased—delivered as credit to be used within its ecosystem. Customers also earn 10% credit for purchases they make with its affiliate partners going forward. When the customer decides to pass things along, they get a QR code for drop off at UPS where the item is shipped to one of Croissant’s three facilities for authentication and verifying it is in good condition. 

“Croissant takes ownership of the item and we resell it through existing resale marketplaces, like Poshmark, Depop and The RealReal—and we have our own resale site too. But the customer gets credit immediately and doesn’t have to wait for it to sell to another customer,” he said.

While Howard admits that onboarding is a process where the customer needs a little handholding, Croissant ultimately proves itself. “We have to educate people on our new ecosystem, but once people are in, it’s self-reinforcing and really valued by users.”

To date, Croissant has delivered over $50 million in GMV to its growing list of brand and retail partners and onboarded 100,000 users, who turn out to be the cream of the crop when it comes to luxury.  Its customers have an average $250,000+ income, spend upwards of $30,000 a year on fashion and make 50+ purchases per year at just under $700 per checkout on the platform. 

“Ours is a uniquely high-value shopper that a lot of premium brands want access to,” he stated. “And we bring them to brands with a collection of services that are tailored to their needs. It’s a virtuous circle for brands who receive more traffic to their sites at better customer acquisition costs. We’re bringing value to shoppers and brands in a way that hasn’t really existed before.”

Croissant is so confident it can bring new high-value customers to brands that it will prepay affiliate partners for the shopping credit it extends to customers. Howard says brands find this prepayment option a valued financing alternative. “It’s a great way for brands to get an injection of cash that also brings net- new customers.”

New Funding Round

Croissant has raised $52 million to date to accelerate customer growth on the platform and brands into its ecosystem, including $28 million in new capital from existing investors Portage, Third Prime and George Roberts. 

Croissant has committed approximately $8 million to bringing new customers into its ecosystem this year. And by year end, it expects to generate $250 million in GMV and another multiple of that in 2027. 

With the new funding round, Howard said, “We are pouring fuel on the fire. For brands, customer acquisition costs are rising and loyalty is fragile. We drive high-intent demand to brands, reward customers for shopping and reselling and create a healthier cycle of commerce. This funding allows us to scale that engine.”