Resale Value Calculator

Three multipliers, one of which dominates

Resale value is the original price times a brand retention rate, times a condition multiplier, times whatever age has taken. Retention is what the market thinks of the label; condition is what the market thinks of your particular item.

Condition dominates for anything reasonably recent. New with tags is the benchmark, excellent fetches about 85% of that, very good 70%, good 55% and fair 35%. One visible flaw commonly moves an item a whole grade, which is a bigger loss than a year of ageing at typical decline rates.

Age compounds rather than subtracting. Three years at 8% a year leaves 78% of the base value, not 76% — a small difference on one item and a meaningful one across a wardrobe.

A worked example

A £500 contemporary-brand coat at 40% retention, in excellent condition, two years old with an 8% annual decline. Base value is £500 × 0.40 × 0.85, which is £170. Two years of decline leaves £143.

The same coat in good rather than excellent condition would be £110 before age and £93 after. That £50 difference is what a missing button and a scuffed hem cost, and it is why storage and small repairs are worth the trouble on anything you intend to sell.

Where the answer misleads

Retention rates vary far more within a brand than between adjacent brands. A label's signature pieces can hold 60% while its seasonal items hold 15%, and averaging them produces a number that describes nothing. Where possible, take the rate from completed sales of the same item.

Completed sales, not listings, is the important distinction. Asking prices on resale platforms are aspirational and frequently double what items actually sell for.

Finally, this estimates what an item is worth, not what you will net. Platform fees, postage and the time to list all come out of it, and on a £90 item those can be a fifth of the value.