In Accra, Ghana's capital, large quantities of second-hand clothing from China, the United States, and the United Kingdom arrive in bales and enter market trading. Local importers sell the goods in batches from warehouses and piles of packages in open squares; supply is plentiful and buyers queue up, with the best days yielding a net profit of 200,000.

These used clothes are collected through the common domestic used-clothing recycling bins, sorted by recycling companies, and only a small portion is used for domestic assistance, while most is transferred to export trading companies and shipped to Africa. China is still a catch-up player in second-hand clothing exports, while Africa absorbs about 90% of second-hand clothing.

In Accra, vendors divide used clothes into three grades by origin and quality: British name brands are considered first-grade, with a single item selling for over 100 yuan; reliable-quality Chinese clothing is second-grade, about 50 yuan; loose, oversized American clothes are third-grade, about 10 yuan. Different price points correspond to different consumer groups: young people and better-off small bosses prefer first-grade items, while the poorest buy second- and third-grade items. Although second-hand underwear is explicitly banned by the Ghanaian government due to health risks, it is still sold on stalls mixed with new goods.

More second-hand clothing flows from Accra to the secondary city of Kumasi, where thousands of wholesalers gather. They resell lower-quality clothing in bundles to retail vendors, about 400 yuan per bundle. Vendors cannot open the packages to inspect when buying; the quality depends entirely on experience and luck, so disputes over package ownership often arise. The Kumasi market is called a "bend-over pick-your-own stall," where customers rummage through the goods themselves; for shoes, only one is displayed, and the other is taken out only after a sale is made, to prevent theft. The stalls at this distribution center stretch for several kilometers, and second-hand apparel has gone from a supporting role twenty years ago to the absolute mainstay, covering everything from Western wedding dresses to down jackets, and has spawned small workshops that re-cut, wash, iron, and bleach damaged clothing to sell as new. At the edge of the market, leftover clothes cost about 1 yuan each; some vendors buy them at low prices, open the packages on site, and resell them to the next tier, while rural peddlers then walk dozens of kilometers to villages to sell them for 1 to 2 yuan each. Even though villagers earn less than 10 yuan a day, they are still willing to borrow money to buy.

The influx of second-hand clothing has also hit the local textile industry. Currently, only one traditional fabric factory remains in all of Ghana, and its output has dropped by 75%. The factory owner believes its biggest competitor is not second-hand clothing, but knockoff products from China—similar in appearance and quality but cheaper. He admits that if things continue this way, this last fabric factory will sooner or later go bankrupt.

Source: Chinese "second-hand clothing" becomes a hot commodity abroad! Earn 200,000 a day, profits are shockingly large · Originally published on 2021-12-03