If you’re thinking resale, you’re thinking right. The secondhand market has flourished in recent years, and it’s just gaining momentum. Not only are we seeing a major shift in consumer behavior, especially among the younger generations, but brands are starting to catch up to consumer demand for sustainable fashion. If you don’t want to be left behind in the resale revolution, it’s not too late. To give you a sense of just how simple it is to build a robust resale channel with the right help, here are the five phases of launching a peer-to-peer resale platform directly on your e-commerce site — plus the next-level support you’ll receive from Recurate every step of the way.
“Our team is 100% dedicated to growing and optimizing our brand partners’ resale programs. We provide strategy, marketing, data insights, customer service — you name it. We want every brands’ program to be a growing and meaningful part of their business in terms of revenue, new customer acquisition, reactivated customers, and sustainability goals.” — Cynthia Power, Recurate’s VP of Brand Success
1. Joining Forces: Getting to know your needs and defining your resale goals.
Once your team connects with Recurate, you’re in good hands. The first step is getting to know one another: We’ll share more in-depth information about our technology and services, and you’ll share your goals, challenges, and reasons for launching resale. Since every brand is unique, our team provides customized care to meet your specific needs. (Here’s how we worked with Brass.) We’ll decide on a realistic launch date, outline workflow and officially kick off our resale partnership. Our brands’ resale platforms typically launch within 7–12 weeks from the initial conversation.
2. Design & Implementation: Creating a custom resale experience to match the look and feel of your brand.
You’ll work hand-in-hand with our in-house web development team on front and back-end design to get the aesthetics and functionality dialed. We also collaborate with your third-party e-comm partners to seamlessly integrate our technology. During this time, your teammates will be brought up to speed — from e-comm to operations to customer care — so everyone is well-versed and ready to go! Your creative team will start to dream up branding while your marketing team will start mapping a communications plan for getting the word out. Recurate will provide helpful guides, mock ups and best practices for every step — from how to structure your landing page to how to market your new resale channel.
3. Launch & Learning: Time to explore, test, and invite your community in!
Once your resale platform is ready, it’s time to welcome your community in. We recommend launching in waves to build up inventory as well as iron out any wrinkles in the experience. You might ask your teammates to explore the platform first, give feedback, and upload product. Our brand partners typically welcome in family and friends or VIP customers next. Each brand is different, so Recurate works with you to plan a phased launch that is best suited to your community. When you’re ready to officially launch, we suggest you go BIG and celebrate across platforms and through pre-arranged press — resale is something to be proud of! We have helped our brand partners secure coverage in Vogue, WWD, GreenMatters, and Glossy, to name a few.
4. More Customers, More Sales: Building engagement & loyalty around resale.
Opening a resale marketplace is the key to expanding your brand’s ecosystem. By offering an on-brand, integrated experience, Recurate’s technology helps brands increase customer lifetime value and attract new customers with a lower cost of acquisition.
We recommend keeping a close eye on customer feedback, as well as success metrics we provide, to evolve your messaging and marketing strategy along the way. Once you find your communications flow, resale can be a powerful way to drive revenue. Not only are you redirecting transactions that would otherwise happen on third-party apps with customers that may be new to your brand, many of our brands see a 2.5x increase in overspending when sellers return to use their store credit.
5. It’s Just the Start: Thinking long-term and planning for continued growth.
Now that your platform is running smoothly, it’s time to think big and get creative. Just like any other campaign, your resale marketplace will require ongoing communications and encouragement to buy and sell. Beyond creating content for your usual channels, you might take part in thought leadership panels, collaborate on giveaways, offer promotions to incentivize buying/selling, explore new ways to advertise, and target new media outlets for coverage. In addition to ongoing support, Recurate also coordinates collaborative giveaways, panels, and events for our brand partners.
Every step of the way, Recurate is here to help.
We want to make it as easy as possible for you to launch resale. Recurate is a full service resale partner, offering brands not only the technology to start and grow their resale platform, but also the data insights and operations support to make your resale program a success.
Whether you’re ready to go or still have questions, reach out! We’d love to talk about your future in resale.
Visit www.recurate.com to learn more about Recurate’s resale program.