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Here’s the link…
Per the article…”Walmart gets it. The second-hand merchandise market is set to explode in the “greatest economy ever.”
So how can/will Ebay and us individual sellers react?
Items are now listed at http://www.walmart.com/threadup
Jim
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I assume thdy got venture capital and are trying to brute force list their way to success. It’ll be interesting to see if they can make more money than they spend running the store:
https://www.thredup.com/We’re the world’s largest online secondhand shopping destination with thousands of like-new styles from your favorite brands at up to 90% off estimated retail. We make sure every single one of the 15K new arrivals we add to the site every day is 100% authentic and in such good shape anyone could mistake them as new. No knockoffs here—just knockoff prices. Find high-quality used women’s clothing and used children’s clothing from fashionable closets just like yours. Specially curated by our style experts.
Makes sense Walmart would allow them to list on Walmart.com since they’re an established player. But will Walmart let you and me list there?
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Thred Up is on ebay, with almost two million listings. WalMart has a lot of third party sellers, and now Thred Up is one of them. What does this mean for small used clothing sellers? It means the DEMAND for used is soaring as Used goes mainstream (can’t get much more Mainstream than WalMart.) At the same time, it means sourcing for small sellers might become more challenging. And it means small sellers need to be adaptable.
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I had read about this elsewhere, so hadn’t read the linked article. Now that I’ve read it, I’d say they left out some significant facts: 1. The Business press has been commenting for some time—-and that is pre-Virus—about the rise in demand for used, especially used clothing. While price is one factor, other factors include : much broader selection, often better quality, environmental concerns (especially among younger buyers, who believe new fashion is much more damaging to the environment than recycling the old.)
So I frankly doubt that WalMart partnered with ThredUp primarily because of the Virus, nor did they do so because of widespread economic hardship (a good bit of ThredUps merchandise is MORE expensive than some of WalMarts new stuff). As I said above, I think this is is just evidence that many people, especially younger people, no longer feel the stigma in buying new that many used to feel years ago. It is now mainstream for many people (something, by the way, which really began with ebay.) (I started buying used long before ebay came along, and I can remember when many people back then wouldn’t step foot in a thrift store, nor even a nice consignment shop. But once more people started selling online, well, more people started sourcing at thrifts, and most of those people pretty quickly realized that they could source and buy for their own use when at thrifts….)
So this change is less about “desperate times” and more about the mainstreaming of an activity that has become one of America’s favorite pastimes—-thrifting, flea marketing, junking….call it what you will….Many, many financially well-off people thrift these days. Didn’t used to be that way.
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Oops. Should read: I think this is is just evidence that many people, especially younger people, no longer feel the stigma in buying USED that many used to feel years ago.
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Jay, ThredUP is an online consignment business. While they obviously have expenses, paying for inventory is not one of them. They deal in high volume, and across multiple venues, and so fas as I know they deal only in clothing and accessories…..probably have a very clear listing protocol in place, pricing data available, etc. Basically, all the efficiencies that come with being able to scale. Like most consignment businesses, they review the consignments that come in and don’t take everything (and I’m pretty sure they advise people not to even bother sending certain things.) Just a guess, but I would guess the people doing the actual work (photos, listing, etc) aren’t raking in big bucks for their efforts.
So, it’s entirely possible that it makes economic sense. But it’s also possible that they have received venture capital and are losing money by the bucketful until they become profitable, so long as the investors keep the faith. I haven’t really looked into them that closely.
Off the top of my head, I see at least two advantages that are built into their business model. The same people who consign to them probably buy from them as well. So, built-in buyer base. Trust. Buyers coming to ebay are faced with thousands of sellers to choose from, some of them very trustworthy, others pretty awful, and not always very easy to decide who is who.. Why make the choice when you can just choose from ThredUp’s vast selection of “curated” goods?
But I also think small sellers can survive alongside ThredUp.
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I wonder if they have huge warehouses of people just taking photos and listing all day. Or do they have a distributed network of folks who list from home.
The economics are interesting since its not cheap to pay people to list, ship, etc. And imagine having to inventory tens of thousands of pieces of clothing.
Sounds like they only list the best items which is helpful.
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Jay, the photo and article will give you some idea of the scale they are talking about. Even your average “large” ebay clothing seller doesn’t begin to compare:
ThredUp, whose second-hand goods will start appearing at Macy’s and JCPenney, just raised a bundle
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Great article and photos. It says they recently raised another $100 million. Do yu think they currently make a net profit?
It seems like a lot of these venture-backed companies (Uber, etc) hope it doesn’t matter if they make a profit. Goal is to get bought by a larger company or go private + cash out.
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I guess I’ve never understood these sites from the perspective of an eBay seller. If I have an almost new Patagonia coat with no flaws, I can sell it quickly myself. These sites are saying “send me gold coins to resell”.
I guess the appeal is to women who like to buy clothes but not sell them. (Currently ThredUp only sells womens clothes)
Looks like Thredup is a venture funded company that has raised over $300-MILLION dollars. Wow. I assume they hope to get bought out by some big company that wants in on the second hand market. Since its private, we have no idea if they actually make a profit currently.
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Jay,
That’s exactly it. Many people don’t want to be bothered with the work that goes into listing and selling on ebay, Poshmark etc. They’d rather send the stuff in to ThredUp andget whatever they get for it. Same as people who’d rather drop stuff off at GoodWill and take the tax deduction rather than try selling it themselves (And many people around here DO try selling it first, at a yard sale, and take only the leftovers to GoodWill.)
If literally everyone said : I’m going to try selling this myself….sourcing would become much harder for those of us who are trying to source their castoffs…..
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Thredup seems to be used multiple ways by clothing resellers – some go to the Goodwill Outlet and send their items to Thredup instead of listing the items themselves on poshmark or ebay. Others buy resell boxes of stock from thredup to list on ebay or poshmark. I’ve also seen some resellers buy on thredup and send the items back to thredup to resell.
I’ve got some clothes I’ve been meaning to list since January but keep on putting off because I don’t want to deal with the possibility of returns. I’m just going to sell them on thredup at this point – they send a free bag and shipping label so you don’t even have to pay to send your clothing to them. They take care of all of the photography, listing, customer service and shipping. Pretty great for people like me who aren’t clothing resellers but also don’t want to just donate these items to a thrift store.
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They do say that only 40% of clothes sent is usually appropriate for listing, so I assume they only list the best of the best (which makes it easy).
https://www.thredup.com/cleanout
“Our strict guidelines allow us to accept only 40% of items in the average Clean Out Kit.”I’d love to hear how much they accept from you. Do they pay you up front like Buffalo Exchange? Or do you get a cut of profits once they sell?
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I’ve used Swap.com in the past. It’s a similar online thrift as ThreadUp. I stopped sending in clothes years ago because they became inundated with inventory, and you had to pay your own shipping. The amount you were paid was reduced drastically, and the criteria they use to accept clothing became stricter as well.
Finally, earlier this year, I noticed that they were accepting clothing again. I organized the clothes I had (most of which was given to me for free by my parents’ downsizing friends). I washed everything per their requirements and sent in only items that were recent and in near perfect condition.
On March 2, I received an email saying that the package was received. I expected to hear from them in a few weeks, but you all know what happened then. Recently, I received an email saying that they were moving their storage facility from Illinois to North Carolina and that they would start listing again June 7. I sent in many items that would be in season now through the summer, so that is all kind of screwed up at this point.
Anyway, I’ll sell the vintage stuff and maybe outerwear on eBay, but anything that is recent is going to Swap.com or similar. I just don’t have the patience to sell that stuff myself.
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–How much stuff did you send in to Swamp.com?
–How much money did you get? (or do they only pay when things sell?)-
Jay – It’s Swap, not Swamp, but I get your point 🙂
The best way to show you how much I send in is to post a screenshot of all my earnings (see below). You can see a line at the top for my newest shipment that hasn’t been listed yet. My earnings will be less since, as I mentioned previously, their commissions have gone up, but my earning on eBay will also be less since clothing prices have gone down there as well.
As far as what I send in, I usually send in a full 20″x20″x17″ box. This is the largest box that they will let you send in. In the beginning, they didn’t have restrictions on the size, and I sent in one that was about 3 feet tall!
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I also did a test box for Swap this year. Only because I can’t seem to sell everyday men’s clothing for anything either online or on Facebook and they accept men’s items, unlike ThredUp. Payout is lousy but it’s about what I’d expect if I tried to take it to an in-person consignment store. Their time to process the box is crazy long too, even before they started switching warehouses. It took over 90 days to process my box. The main advantage is they accept men’s clothing and some kids non-clothing items.
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