ThredUp partners with ‘High School Musical’ star for back-to-school

ThredUp is turning to influencers to help drive back-to-school sales.

The online resale platform is partnering with actress Sofia Wylie, star of the TV series “High School Musical,” to launch its “Get Ready With Us: Back-to-School Edition” seasonal promotion. Consumers can visit a dedicated online storefront on the ThredUp e-commerce site for back-to-school shopping.

In addition to promoting items customers can directly shop, influencers including Wylie as well as personalities such as Eva Meloche, Nia Sioux, Evelyn Ha, Sydney Serena, Kate Brock, Lyn Truong, Bailey Dedrick and Amelie Desai have access to the ThredUp Thrifted tool.

The Thrifted solution enables the back-to-school influencers to show customers what they bought for themselves and offers up thousands of similar items to shop across sizes, brands and price points, resulting in a curated shopping experience.

“There is no doubt that influencers have impacted people’s fashion habits for quite some time,” said Erin Wallace, VP of marketing, ThredUp. “With the trend cycles continuing to speed up, we believe influencers and celebrities have an even greater responsibility to help people make educated choices about what they buy and wear.”

ThredUp survey reveals Gen Z back-to-school plans

ThredUp conducted a survey of 1,992 U.S. Gen Z consumers ages 16-26 via third-party retail analytics firm GlobalData asking questions about their shopping behaviors this back-to-school season, as well as their relationship with and perception of fast fashion. Interesting findings include:

• More than half of respondents expect to buy six or more new apparel items this back-to-school season. 
• Nearly half of respondents want to buy secondhand clothes for this back-to-school season.
• More than one-third (36%) of respondents say they feel addicted to fast fashion.
• Two-thirds of respondents say they have shopped from fast fashion brands in the past year.

• More than one in four respondents say they shop fast fashion weekly or more.

• Nearly half of respondents say they would like to quit shopping fast fashion or shop it less.
• The top reason respondents want to quit or cut back on shopping fast fashion is because they want to shop more sustainably and ethically.

• Nearly half of respondents say that social media and influencer marketing influences what they choose to buy. 
• More than one in five respondents say that the majority of the fashion they purchase was discovered through an influencer.

[Read more: Exclusive Q&A: ThredUp looks at the state of resale]