Episodes
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Join host Andy Ruben, founder of Trove, in a groundbreaking episode where the intersection of business and sustainability takes center stage. Uncover the strategies and insights that redefine sustainability as not only essential but smart business. In this candid conversation, Andy and industry experts Asha Agrawal Head of Corporate Dev at Patagonia, Chris Riley, former strategic planning director Wieden+Kennedy, and J.R. Siegel Sr. Director of Product Innovation at Wordly, explore the evolution of circular business models, the imperative of integrating sustainability, and why it's not just a choice but a necessity for successful companies. Buckle up for a journey where innovation isn't an option—it's the key to thriving in a business landscape where sustainability is the new standard.
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In this episode of "Let’s Talk Resale," we dive into the future of item digitization, where every product will have its own digital identity. Joined by industry leaders, we'll discuss how brands are navigating this new terrain, especially in light of emerging initiatives like the EU's digital product passports. This isn't just about meeting new standards; it's about leveraging this dual physical-digital nature, much as products like Tesla and iPhone do, to maximize customer engagement and opportunities. Tune in for practical insights and strategies every brand executive should consider.
In this episode of "Let’s Talk Resale," we delve into the future of item digitization, envisioning a realm where each product possesses its own distinct digital identity. Industry leaders join us to navigate this quickly emerging new terrain.
Niall Murphy, Founder EvrythngLindsey Hermes, Avery DennisonDr. Daniela Ott, Secretary General Aura BlockchainNatasha Franck, Founder and CEO of EONGayle Tait, CEO of TroveWe explore how brands are adapting to this digital revolution, especially with the emergence of initiatives such as the EU's digital product passports.
This is far beyond merely meeting new standards; it's about harnessing the power of this dual physical-digital essence, akin to renowned products like Tesla and iPhones, to optimize customer engagement and unearth opportunities. Tune in for invaluable insights and practical strategies that every brand executive should consider. -
Episodes manquant?
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Who is the customer of tomorrow? How do they shop? What do brand - and brand values - mean to them?
In this second episode of Let’s Talk Resale, we consider brands' future customers. We live amid a massive cultural shift in customers' beliefs and priorities. Digital commerce and internet ubiquity have changed the shopping experience - brands, pricing, reviews, and comments. Gen Z is coming into their earning years with a fresh point of view.
In this episode, we will understand the future customer and what they might want going forward.
We will hear from two industry experts -Tony Ambroza, whose experience is leading branding and growth for brands such as Carhartt, and author Martin Newman, who is “One of the world’s leading authorities on customer centricity.”We also speak with three GenZers, Katie Xue, Armaan Ahmed, and Sophie Richter–all recent college grads. They are each involved in the art and the fashion industry. Katie leads a small, sustainable women’s wear brand called Amoy New York. Armaan is getting ready to go to grad school for philosophy and art. Sophia works for The RealReal as a luxury manager.
Brand narrative matters more than ever, with a new emphasis on sustainability, authenticity, and individuality. Customers want the brands to reflect their values. The question is, how will your brand evolve to excite and inspire this new generation?
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ThredUp and eBay in the News: Decoding Their Moves to Uncover the Future of Resale
This Weeks Key Takeaways:
Embrace in-house resale channels: While brands can learn from resale marketplaces, it's essential to bring resale in-house as it becomes a more significant portion of salesLeverage strategic partnerships with marketplaces: As platforms like eBay continue to grow their partnerships with brands, every brand must incorporate the potential benefits of these marketplaces as a strategic component of their resale strategyThe addition of Toms and The Container Store to ThredUp's RaaS partners underscores the growing significance of the resale market. As resale becomes an increasingly important part of revenue and customer engagement, brands must recognize the value of entering the resale market through RaaS programs and anticipate the need to own their resale channels to stay close to their customers.Although partnerships with marketplaces offer brands an easy entry point into the resale market, they must look beyond these collaborations in the long run. As resale becomes a more meaningful part of revenue, brands must develop their channels to maintain customer loyalty and stay competitive.Brands can initially work with marketplaces or establish independent resale channels through service providers. Regardless of their choice, brands must plan for the future and build strong connections with their customers through owned resale channels.eBay's introduction of new services like the Authenticity Guarantee for streetwear and Certified by Brand for watches, handbags, and fine jewelry demonstrates the platform's recognition of the growing resale market. By offering trust and transparency to buyers, eBay is raising the bar in the resale experience.As the resale market evolves, platforms like eBay must adapt and offer innovative solutions catering to customers' trust and quality demands. eBay's moves to be closer to brands create an opportunity for brands to strategically collaborate with marketplaces like eBay, making the most of these partnerships.The resale market is expanding, with Sam Edelman partnering with Archive and designer Altuzarra collaborating with Reflaunt. As more brands enter the resale arena, customer expectations will rise, and resale will account for an ever-growing share of the retail landscape. Brands must treat resale as a vital channel, as Sam Edelman and Altuzarra do.The future of retail is here, and brands must adapt to the resale market's rising importance by owning their channels and collaborating strategically with platforms like eBay. -
This Weeks Key Takeaways:
Selling second-hand products has the potential to attract customers in ways that one-off, sustainability-oriented products haven’tBrands and retailers looking to increase profits can benefit from launching resale programs that include returns, as they can provide cost savings starting point -
This Weeks Key Takeaways:
Brands will continue to innovate toward a listing/trade-in value proposition that makes sense to their customers. Lululemon and Frye were good examples highlighted in the 2023 Resale IndexAlthough the economics differ, rental and resale both hold brand benefits in more circular models. Brands will want to pick the right model(s) that make sense for their customers -
This Weeks Key Takeaways:
Changes at The RealReal present opportunities for others in the resale market.Brands will need to treat emissions with the same level of importance as financial performance, as poor performance may have negative market consequences, similar to financial underperformance, down the road. -
What is the state of resale today? Which brands are leading the industry? Where exactly is the industry heading? And … how fast?
In this episode of Let’s Talk Resale, we discuss Trove’s inaugural resale Index, a report that takes a step back, assesses our progress so far, and anticipates what’s to come for the circular economy. Our discussion touches on the construction of the report and reflects on key findings with industry experts Simeon Siegel, Bernardine Wu, and Ken Voeller … hint: it all comes back to the customer.
Download the Brand Resale Index here.
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W. David Marx, author of the book Status and Culture was highlighted In a New York Times Style piece this week, on the evolving status symbol of luxury goods. According to Marx, “Someone carrying a beat-up Hermès bag suggests they are not simply wearing it because of its label. I don’t even care if it gets beat up, because I’m not using this for status marking.”
As the article points out, the growing resale market has made these once highly exclusive pieces available to those without multi-generation wealth and that is altering their use of self-expression. What used to be stored in a closet to maintain pristine condition is increasingly being used in the real world. The Hermes Birkin is famously said to be inspired when actress Jane Birkin complained about needing a bag to carry around small toys for her young children.
Now celebrities and social influencers are showing off the “real world” wear in their Birkins and Kellys. The bags have not changed but the way they are used and what it says about those wearing them are always changing. We won’t know for years if this is part of a larger shift in culture but it would be reasonable to assume that celebrating wear not hiding it, will be a natural evolution of more accessible brands and quality items.
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Jacklyn Wells, a 19-year-old Depop seller posted a TikTok in late January showing off “the most insane thrift haul.” The TikTok quickly went negative, really negative with more than 5.9M views inciting a moral reaction that thrifting should be philanthropic not for profit. Jacklyn was called "greedy, lazy, and parasitic." I will spare you from the most aggressive comments but the controversy created quite a bit of debate on the ethics of resale.
Sophie Benson’s article appearing this week in British Vogue, Should You Buy From A Thrift Store If You Can Afford Not To? provided a thoughtful assessment of the debate. The majority of thrift stores operated by non for profits are job creation programs and these programs expand with more demand. As Benson rightly points out, “reselling requires hours of work including sourcing, prepping, cleaning, mending, styling, photographing and posting, and any markup must reflect and compensate for that labor.”
As Benson points out, we aren’t talking about stockpiling baby formula or toilet paper for that matter. The fashion industry produces 150 billion garments EVERY year for 8 billion people on the planet. Thrift stores are inundated with donations, turning away a majority of clothing items as they aren’t able to sell thru them. There is no shortage of clothing. The more we thrift the more items we keep in use and this undoubtedly displaces some purchases of new items.
We have massive problems in society where many can’t afford clothing and this should create outrage, and ideally support programs designed around providing clothing such as Dress for Success or Soles4Souls. But those willing to invest in the risk, work, and curation of maximizing value for clothing should be celebrated not shamed.
Glossy asked this week, Can The RealReal’s aggressive cost-cutting help it reach profitability? My favorite part of the article was the sharp question, “So how did a company that helped usher in the massive and still growing fashion resale boom end up in this predicament?” There are only a handful of successful stand-alone retailers emerged over the past 20 years and there couldn’t be a more difficult time to break out than during a global pandemic followed by a dramatic shift in the cost of capital. It’s unclear if The RealReal will reach a point of profitable growth or will eventually be a part of a larger more established luxury retailer. However, resale is here to stay and clearly creating opportunities for brands and resale platform providers who support their resale efforts.
Hanna Anderson launched their peer-to-peer resale platform Hanna-Me-Downs, powered by Archive. The storefront is prominently displayed on the main menu navigation of the mainline site and allows sellers to list items for other customers to shop. According to the company the site launched with 1,500 items with prices averaging $18-$24. This is a seemingly great fit for resale and the peer-to-peer model given the price point. I expect over time branded storefronts such as Hanna-Me-Downs will grow consumer awareness and expectations of resale.
The So What
Keeping items in use longer is essential for a more sustainable future, and those who invest their time to buy and resell clothing are doing us all a serviceBrands should choose the right resale model for their business and Hanna Anderson’s peer-to-peer model will work well at the lower Kids' brand price point -
There are high expectations for resale as pointed out by The Guardian. Next-generation customers will seek out pre-owned items that will allow the fashion industry to automatically transform a 100+ year-old linear model into a circular model. This will not happen in a straight path, nor will it happen overnight. Today, we live in the wild west, where it’s hard to distinguish the positive forward momentum from the PR plays.
The Fast Company article, ‘We buy too many clothes. Can fashion’s secondhand boom change that?’ really brings this point home. The piece starts by asking the question, despite all the resale news, “why the boom in resale isn’t putting a dent in new clothing sales.” This would be like asking, despite all the eCommerce websites in 2002, why hasn’t commerce changed? eCommerce has changed commerce, and resale will change new clothing production, but business model change on this scale takes time.
What is more relevant is how brands are approaching the change. Fast Company spoke with Patagonia’s @Asha Agrawal and Madewell’s @Liz Hershfield. Agrawal points out that Patagonia must ensure that its resale platform makes money because this will allow the company to reduce the number of new products it produces while remaining a thriving business. “[Worn Wear is] already a profitable business for us. So now, it’s just about scaling this business proposition, which will allow us to cut back on our net new production.”
In contrast, Fast Company points out that most resale platforms don’t generate revenue for brands, including ThredUp and Recurate, which helped launch resale sites for Mara Hoffman, Steve Madden, and Outerknown. Madewell’s Hershfield states, “We weren’t looking at profitability, but we want to break even financially. We do this to ensure we’re meeting our sustainability goals.”
Madewell’s Forever (their resale partnership with ThredUP) is indeed good in many ways, including keeping items in use and driving customer expectations for resale. But because Madewell doesn’t have a business model to make money on selling pre-owned items, Madewell isn’t set up to shift its business away from a linear model. This and many other brand resale programs work in a philanthropy model rather than a business model change.
The importance of a profitable business model extends beyond sustainability as more brand items are sold everywhere. EXPRESS Pre Loved, powered by LXR, quietly added 150+ luxury products to its online storefront, including Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton. EXPRESS makes it easy for their customers to shop across new and pre-owned as part of their marketplace program, including shared cart, which only 25% of brands offer today. All of this works for EXPRESS but not for the brands they now sell. The obvious risk here is that brands who never choose to sell to EXPRESS have zero control on how their items are priced, merchandise, or authenticated.
Chloe made news this week by announcing it would digitally label all pieces by 2025, starting with a 20-piece capsule collection this year. As WWD reports, this part isn’t new news, as many brands do this today across their full range of products. This is an essential strategy for the authenticity and future value of their products.
What was more interesting, was the splashy headlines such as Vogues, Chloé launches ‘instant resale’ using digital IDs on Vestiaire Collective. This is a great headline, as it speaks to the potential brands have to monetize the total value of their items. While details of the program are scarce, Vestiaire Collective may be offering immediate payout on these items rather than requiring a buyer. In this case, Vestiaire would take on the risk of the item's condition, pricing, and selling. Given this is a 1-year pilot for a capsule collection of 20 items first available in early April, we are likely talking about a handful of items ever being bought and sold in this way.
Digital product IDs are an excellent move for brands. While this is a demonstration project, Chloe’s direction to digitize all items by 2025 makes sense. Digital IDs have tremendous potential for brands to authenticate items and own the total value of their items. Digital IDs don’t make a resale program. Brands still need to own their brand, and their customers via brand resale. Digital IDs will make that easier.
The So What
To create more sustainable models brands need to make money selling their pre-owned items. Otherwise brand resale programs will never shift their business away from linear to circular models.Digital IDs are the future but don’t change the reality that brands should not depend on anyone else to own their digital authentication keys and the resale models built on those digital IDs. -
The secondhand luxury goods market grew 28% in 2022 to reach $45.21 billion, according to Bain & Company and Fondazione Altagamma. This is 1.3X higher than the growth rate for new luxury goods. For a related growth stat, eBay shared they saw a 24 percent increase in circular fashion businesses joining their site last year, and searches for pre-loved clothing on eBay UK have skyrocketed 1600 percent since last summer. This is likely why eBay recently participated in the $9 million capital raise round for Cudoni, a luxury resale platform based in London.
Kirsty Keoghan, eBay UK’s global fashion GM, shared her views on the two drivers of the growth in the City A.M. “The first is related to consumers’ growing awareness of their environmental footprint, and the second is related to their expectation of high-quality products at a great value, which is more important than ever as we grapple with the cost-of-living crisis.”
This week Canada Goose launched its branded resale program, Generations, powered by Trove’s Recommerce Operating System. More than a decade ago, when I discussed branded resale with retailers, brand execs, and VCs, Canada Goose was a go-to example of a brand that would massively benefit from its heritage and category –so kudos to the team. The resale program has all the elements we’ve expected these days, with a few notable callouts, such as combining a vintage section with periodic drops and an ‘always on’ ability to shop ‘certified’ Canada Goose.
Just Style reported on recent findings by EURIC, the confederation representing European recycling industries at the EU level. The study found a “massive” 3kg of CO2 saved for each reused piece of clothing, equating to a 70X lower footprint for secondhand fashion.
The industry needs to recognize the importance of secondhand as the new business model challenges the existing make-and-sell models. But awareness and change are too important to stay in the background, especially with social influencers. The South China Morning Post reported influencer Masego Morgan was shocked when a fast fashion giant offered her $1,000 for a single social media post to promote its brand. Sustainable fashion influencer Dr Brett Staniland provided close to $5,500 for a post. Both are fighting back against these fast fashion models. I don’t believe this is the core reason for Shein’s recent headwinds, as reported in BoF. Still, it's a headwind nonetheless, and that all adds up for both customers and investors–especially for investors with reputational risks to consider.
So what does all this mean for brands? In an article titled, Inside fashion brands’ new integration of resale and retail, Glossy shared the many reasons brands are launching their resale channels, including customer acquisition, loyalty, and sustainability. The article highlighted a range of commercial success for brands in resale: with brands such as M.M.LaFleur and Peak Design sharing new customer acquisition and loyalty business benefits. In contrast, others appeared to be loss leaders for sustainability reasons. Karin Dillie, VP of partnerships at Recurate, shared, “We predict that it’s not just going to be the Patagonias of the world that are investing heavily in this in the future.”
I love that, so long as these investments are against viable resale programs for the business. As the article points out, there is a wide range today. I'm concerned about brands rationalizing or hiding poor business programs behind sustainability. This is bad for the brand and rarely does much for sustainability. For quality brands, this is about understanding your customer and sound program design.
The South China Morning Post ran a story on rental, ‘Renting clothes? No thanks, it’s too expensive and not as green as buying second-hand. Aside from the overly aggressive headline, there are some cases where rental makes sense. We must start with the customer, potential economics, and environmental math, not simply launching rental or resale as a cookie-cutter program.
Ultimately customers will continue to move toward value, and getting more use out of what we make is a prominent area of growth–both for enjoying better brands for less and less wasteful production models urgently needed for sustainability. But just like fashion, one size doesn’t fit all. Over the long run, the brands that align themselves with innovative resale programs will win.
Why It Matters:
Secondhand continues as the fastest-growing channel in retail, so those not offering these options to customers are simply losing market share.The design of resale programs matters to create the correct business value. Without business value, these programs will struggle to scale and reach their potential environmental benefit. -
J. Crew launched its resale program, J Crew Always, with Thredup’s Resale as a Service (RaaS) last week, well-timed to be announced at NRF’s Big Show. Given the existing Madewell program with ThredUP, it wasn’t surprising to see J Crew enter resale in this way.
According to WWD, “The J. Crew items already listed on ThredUp are not part of the J. Crew Always initiative.” Historically it has been a marketplace limitation to pull in thousands of items already listed on the branded resale site, often degrading the brand given the wide range of item conditions. This program seems to be a significant step forward to designate only some of the items as fitting branded resale.
Second, segmented inventory allows J Crew to sell in select stores. According to a Retail Dive article, “the 40-year-old brand is leveraging its longevity with ‘J. Crew Vintage,’ a curated collection for men and women to be sold at select stores, including two in New York City.” It is a smart move for J Crew as it provides a reason to visit a physical store and leverages store traffic to create awareness of the online program.
Similarly, Depop launched a collection in combination with Tommy Hilfiger. No bells and whistles to call out but worth noting as more brands are looking to capitalize on the shift to secondhand.
RaaS programs have come a long way in recent years with more customizable storefronts and now more segmented inventory. However, brands need to remember even with these steps, and it is far from a branded experience. In the end, J Crew Always will operate on the same technology as ThredUP, constrained on brand choices such as product title, description, search, and markdowns which optimizes ThredUP, not the J Crew brand. Additionally, at some point, all brands will need to own their customers and keep a competitor from sharing sales data for a significant and growing channel.
The New York Times started their piece, Rolex Now Has a Resale Program. The Watch World Quakes, “There is a saying in the high-end watch trade that there are only two kinds of watchmakers: Rolex and everyone else.” It’s an excellent article for anyone in the resale space. Rolex is not only instructive for the watch category, but the high-end watch category is instructive for fashion, luxury handbags, ready-to-wear, outdoor gear, and footwear companies. There are learnings here for how to view items, even if many are aspirational.
Rolex Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) validates the secondhand market for many customers and undoubtedly increases the value of every new Rolex sold–as a product becomes an asset. By enforcing CPO standards, Rolex will also drive up the secondary price of these timepieces, furthering the quality of the brand–i.e., CPO Rolex will sell at a premium, which is a good thing for Rolex.
Finally, HBR published an article, How Sustainability Efforts Fall Apart; an excellent read for anyone in a larger brand organization working on resale. I listened this morning as Max Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire Collective, answered a question about the metrics his investors watch as a B Corp. Max’s straight-faced answer was GMV, Revenue, and Net Profit. The audience gasped as he didn’t mention CO2, Water, etc.
I agree with Max’s answer and would have likely added that resale models achieving business value is the way we will achieve more sustainable, circular models. Brands must make similar or even more money on circular models if we want them to take hold and ultimately provide more sustainable solutions to the fashion industry.
The So What
Even as marketplace platforms provide more options for brands, they ultimately are incentivized to build their customer base rather than the brand.Rolex’s move into CPO can be instructive for others in the high-end watch industry as other industries, including fashion, luxury, outdoor, and footwear. -
Rent the Runway’s deal with Amazon is a five-alarm fire for brands such as Rag & Bone and Tory Burch. RTR sells pre-owned branded fashion and its own branded pieces on Amazon at significant discounts. RTR started with selling via Thredup the Sacks Off Fifth and now Amazon. Their stock was rewarded, but this is short term, but it’s hard not to see the desperation with long-term concerns for the company.
@Sucharita Kodali, principal analyst at Forrester, said in a Sourcing Journal piece the new relationship suggests RTR isn’t “operating from a position of strength” and has “basically thrown in the towel.” She compared the deal to the “end game in chess.” “You’re about to lose… so you’re giving up your rook as a last-ditch effort to delay…the end of the game.” I share these quotes because Sucharita nailed them.
This makes fantastic sense for Amazon, which now sells $7,150 Chanel handbags and $12,500 Rolex watches to their customers, even though Chanel or Rolex would never directly choose to sell on Amazon. They continue to provide more brands and value to their customers. With more customer traffic, they gain negotiating power over others such as RTR and What Goes Around Comes Around (WGACA), who suppliers the Chanel handbags and $545 Hermès scarves.
So why did RTR do the deal? As a recent public company, they are fighting to prove they can build a profitable business that captures the customer shift from ownership to access. And there is a massive shift taking place, but it needs to be faster to satisfy public investor expectations. We will see whether these moves toward resale will distract RTR from its core rental platform or provide the life support that the business needs for customers to catch up. I sadly expect it will be the first.
And what does this mean for brands who now find themselves with more items on Amazon? More headwind. As if this economic market and the changing customer weren’t challenging enough, brands increasingly compete with discounted items as others profit and degrade their hard-earned brand equity. This latest move is another example of how brands must control their destiny–offering resale models directly and working with channel partners with aligned interests.
In other news, this past week, we went from 120 resale programs to 121, as we can add YETI to the list of brands with owned resale channels with the launch of YETI RESCUES. YETI is the latest in a series of impressive launches for Arrive, including Burton and Eddie Bauer. While the assortment appears limited to ‘open box’ items, the online storefront is clean, on-brand, and easy to shop. While it’s a fine starting point, I expect this to be a jumping-off point for YETI and expect them to expand assortment and ideally trade in over the coming months.
On the marketplace front, consolidation continues as South Korean internet player Naver invested $80.7M to become the largest stakeholder in Wallapop, a mobile-based European platform for buying and selling second-hand products. This follows the acquisition of Poshmark last year as Naver establishes a strong global P2P portfolio that connects the markets in North America, Europe, Japan and Korea. Given these platforms are building customer brand and loyalty, this is a play for more global market coverage with the ability to leverage P2P technology at a greater scale.
Additionally, Sellier Knightsbridge has acquired the luxury resale platform Worn, growing its business by a reported 25%. Both acquisitions speak to the maturing marketplace space and the need for scale. It’s only mid-January! and I expect to see far more consolidation in the coming months.
While luxury marketplaces consolidate, more luxury players are predicted to enter with direct offerings, as covered in Retail Brew. The article summarized it’s 2023 predictions as another massive growth year for resale; however, profits will be elusive. While I don’t disagree, I see this year far more about scale for brands. For brands to scale any line of business as they fight for their fair share of the growing market, they must live up to the customer experience and make money. This is where profit becomes critical to scaling resale.
The So What
Brands need to control their destiny in the secondhand market, so their items don’t end up being sold in channels that devalue the brand.What’s good for Amazon may not be good for your brand -
Don't Buy This Jacket - A Story with Former Patagonia’s Nellie Cohen and Trove’s Founder Andy Ruben
The birth and evolution of Patagonia’s Worn Wear is a story of confronting the hard truths about our linear business models that overproduction is ultimately unsustainable. It is a story of innovation through iteration baked with intentionality, failing forward and trying again. As Nellie and Andy recount these early years, the audience will take away more general value that can be applied to their business, including:
Confront the hard questions. Our current linear fashion model puts us toward ecological bankruptcy, which requires system change. The work required here is not straightforward or quick. It involves confronting uncomfortable truths, risk, and experimentation. Bring in others.Circular models require business model change. Checking a box that you “do resale” is just that -- checking a box. Transformational business models allow a brand or business to grow in a new manner that doesn’t require production growth in emissions. These require a north star and intention at the highest levels of a company.Business model innovation aligns with the core brand. Innovation needs to be tied to the brand ethosLearn more about Trove and Anthesis.
Connect with Andy Ruben and Nellie Cohen. -
It’s been a week of 2023 prediction soup. Nearly all the prediction lists included Resale–some predictions driven by younger customer preferences, some by value in difficult economic times, and some for sustainability-oriented shoppers. Learn how these predictions can be acted on for your brand in this week's Resale Edit.
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Happy New Year, and Welcome to what is sure to be a dynamic 2023 for Resale.
Let’s start with Glossy’s article, The state of resale in 2023: Competition, consolidation and a push for profitability. The piece assessed players from The RealReal to Treet and summarized with “twin challenges of an overcrowded market and the growing expectation for profitability will be difficult to overcome.”
A critical element is missing in this assessment. The distinction between The RealReal, which is a third-party marketplace building its brand and customer base, and Treet a service provider aimed at supporting brands who are adding resale to their existing business.
Third-party marketplaces, such as The RealReal, Thredup, Poshmark (now part of South Korean internet conglomerate Naver Corp.), and Vestiaire Collective, are retailers who focus on their brand and build a profitable customer base. They exist in a reasonably mature market, and most players are now public. Vestiaire is the exception, who just raised $80B in debt as they work toward profitability. While there is room for a few players in the space, it is overcrowded today. Given the lack of profitability and the economic climate, valuations are lowered, and more consolidation is to be expected. In this part of the industry, Glossy is right on the money.
Service providers, such as Trove, Recurate, Archive, Reflaunt, and Treet, are not building a customer-facing brand or a loyal customer base. They are service providers who support brands whose items are being resold on marketplaces such as The RealReal the Thredup. This part of the industry is far less mature and is poised for incredible innovation and growth as more brands enter Resale and work to scale their offerings.
Scale will be the test for the service providers as the brands mature and look for more scale, but it’s likely too early for consolidation here. That will be in 2024 and beyond.
The second Glossy article, What to expect from fashion rental in 2023, details the up and down year for rental in 2022, including new brand launches into rental such as Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, and MatchesFashion all launched rental while both Ann Taylor and Banana Republic quietly shut down their rental programs.
Rental is a new customer behavior, and brands must determine if rental is right for their brand. Customers aren’t going to want separate rental programs for every brand and need in their wardrobe. Hence these programs will likely make sense for multi-brand retailers such as Rent the Runway, Selfridges, Nordstrom, or REI and possibly for specific use cases such as Burton’s rental kit, including snowboard, boots, bindings, and outerwear for hitting the ski slopes.
The Key Takeaways
If your brand is exploring different circular models such as rental, think about the value for your customers over the long term. Brands will learn the most as they enter the space in the most customer-centric way for their products.Brands need to be aware of who they ‘partner’ with as customers look for more preowned options. Third-Party Marketplaces, such as ThredUP need to build their brand and loyal customer base and are not aligned to do the same for a brand.Subscribe to The Resale Edit Newsletter Here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6966761821013753856/ -
5 Resale Predictions for 2023 As the news slows down for the Holidays and New Year, we’d love to share our resale predictions for 2023.
Let’s start with how the end of this year. 2022 will be the year Branded Resale became table stakes. We went from 31 to 120+ brands with dedicated resale programs. There is no going back.
Brands didn’t start the shift, customers did as pioneers such as The RealReal, Poshmark, Rent the Runway, and ThredUP made it easier than ever to shop secondhand. Brands took it from there. Eileen Fisher’s ‘Green Eileen’ was the first in 2009 but still positioned as philanthropic. Patagonia x Trove launched Worn Wear in 2016 as the first branded resale program, quickly followed by Eileen Fisher x Trove and REI x Trove later that year. ThredUP launched RaaS in 2019. Reflaunt was founded in 2017, Recurate in 2020, Archive in 2021, and most recently Treet all of whom make it easier than ever for brands to launch branded programs.
The customer shift continues to make resale the fastest-growing retail channel and the more brands with resale programs, the more customers expect brands to have resale channels. There is no going back.
So what’s next?
5 Predictions for 2023
Brands with newly launched resale programs move to build resale businesses. This requires a path to scale and profitability and will ultimately require logistics. 2023 will start to really separate the headlines from the businesses moving hundreds of thousands of single SKU items to new homes.Brands further integrate the customer journey more fully realizing the power of resale and trade-in. We saw the start of this in 2022 with integrated carts, order history, store trade-in, and returns, and that trend will accelerate.Continued consolidation of third-party marketplaces. There is room for a few third-party marketplaces, which are really simply retailers but fewer than the number today. We saw the start of this in 2022 with Tradsey, Poshmark, and Grailed but there is more to come as these marketplaces work to both scale and prove long-term business viability.New innovation models that mix historically separate ideas such as resale, rental, and discovery. These lines are blurring and there will be more companies starting to pioneer on the backs of what brands are now doing.Luxury’s wake-up call. Luxury will realize it’s time to act in order to protect their brand from being sold in channels they can’t control. Retail is a large marketplace and as Amazon, Walmart, Saks Off 5th, and more start selling Gucci and Louis Vuitton, there is a risk to the luxury brands themselves–in both brand equity and authenticity. -
As Sourcing Journal writes, Money Keeps Flowing Into Secondhand Shopping. Yes, and this week we will cover Vestiaire’s $80M in a credit line and Beni’s raise of $4M. There is a lot of talk about how secondhand is accelerated by the economy or this or that. The reality is, shopping secondhand allows us to get nicer things for less money. Value is about as basic as it gets for what appeals to customers and secondhand delivers this in a fundamentally new way.
Max Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire is good at raising money. Vestiaire Collective has signed a €75 million sustainability-linked revolving credit facility (RCF) from Crédit Agricole CIB, Société Générale, HSBC Continental Europe, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. Vestiaire is private and it’s unclear how great the financial losses are in building the platform but I am confident this cash was needed as I expect the interest rate isn’t cheap these days.
But what’s interesting about this to me is the linkage between finance and GHG emissions captured in the debt. The debt instrument has “potential interest rate discounts based on performance against key ESG targets, including the reduction of its GHG emissions,” explains Vestiaire Collective in a press release. Of course, there are questions about how such reductions are measured but honestly, for now, the bigger point is they are being structured this way at all–which is exciting both in the recognition that secondhand is critical for fashion emissions and these banks find it important to finance GHG reductions.
In other financing news, Beni, the web browser extension for secondhand shopping, announced the close of its seed round of $4 million led by Buoyant Ventures bringing the total raised to $5M. Congratulations to Beni CEO Sarah Pinner. Beni is an innovative way to make it easier to shop secondhand now across more than 30 resale sites and I expect just one of many we will see in the coming year.
Goodwill’s secondhand site, GoodwillFinds has reached nearly 200,000 available items and CEO Matthew Kaness believes they will catalog over a million items by the end of the year. In earlier posts, I questioned if Goodwill would invest in the technology necessary to sufficiently operate an eCommerce business and it looks like so far the answer is yes. Goodwill has a significant physical presence and bringing these items online will be one more way plus in propelling the industry forward. Right on.
The New York Times in a piece titled, Cheap Meets Eco-Chic on the Ski Slopes, discusses the shift from traditional ski swaps to online-enabled secondhand shopping. Included in this was Burton’s formal entry into resale with an online rental program giving customers the option to rent a kit — a snowboard, boots, bindings, and outerwear — that can be shipped anywhere in the continental U.S. The platform is supported by Arrive who continues to make great progress in supporting brands, especially in the rental space.
And finally, the resale launch of the Plus-size brand Torrid with ThredUP. The program is in line with Thredup’s Resale-As-A-Service (RAAS) but it is exciting to see more inclusive brands in the resale space and worth a call out.
Key Takeaways
Sustainability efforts must go beyond PR and are increasingly important to financing and interest rates for brands that can demonstrate GHG reductions.Brands should stay close to how these innovations evolve with new models such as Beni’s browser plug-in and Burton’s rental kits emerging and the new opportunities these create for them in the resale space. - Montre plus
