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On Tuesday, Retail Brew hosted the latest edition of our event series, The Checkout, with a conversation about the resale revolution and its impact on sustainability. Katishi spoke with Pooja Sethi, ThredUp’s SVP and GM of Resale-as-a-Service, and Marcus Shen, B-Stock Solutions’s COO.
The gist: To make resale a successful and sustainable part of operations, it has to be convenient for retailers and shoppers, according to Sethi and Shen.
Click here to watch the full event replay, and keep reading for the top takeaways.
Reuse, recycle, resell
Secondhand was a trend before Covid, but the pandemic accelerated the market’s growth. It’s expected to double to $77 billion by 2025, according to a recent ThredUp report.
- Shen said B-Stock saw a 50% YoY spike in inventory and merchandise sold on the B2B marketplace platform.
- ThredUp also saw increased supply, as people cleaned out their closets while stuck at home.
One reason resale has caught people’s attention (and wallets)? Consumers don’t want to waste time, money, or the planet’s resources, Sethi said. “We saw that people were seeking value [and] we saw the opposition to environmental waste.”
- 33 million consumers shopped secondhand for the first time last year, Sethi noted.
Count us in: Retailers are eager to get involved, as part of their broader sustainability efforts. Sethi said ThredUp has seen a big increase in brands looking to get into the resale game over the last year.
- This week, Madewell and ThredUp announced their new denim resale program, which accepts pre-worn jeans in exchange for $20 credit toward a new pair.
Sethi and Shen agreed that to get more buy-in, it’s crucial to make resale convenient for both the retailer and the consumer.
“It's a more competitive market than it's ever been. Optimizing inventory management and making sure things are moving out of their warehouses quickly...making the best use of their resources is mission critical,” Shen told us.
- B-stock uses an “ecosystem of partners, whether it's logistics [or] handling,” to “loosen the burden of ‘doing the right thing’ around sustainability.”
Get green
While retailers and brands are keen on minimizing waste, they want to maximize profits too.
“Ultimately, it's the time value of money,” Sethi said. Companies have started to see resale as a growth channel in a larger omnichannel strategy.
- “It’s not just the right thing to do, it also makes money for the brand,” Sethi said. “That is what will drive innovation.”
Looking ahead: “The categories will get broader,” Shen said. “Businesses will attack [resale] in categories outside apparel,” pointing to consumer electronics, home goods, and furniture as the future of the space.—JG, KM