Ep. 15 Talking Up Secondhand Shit
Today we’re following up on Ep.9 “Thrifting Is The Shit” with a special guest: James Reinhart, CEO and Founder of ThredUp. I first met James back in 2012 when I was starting a fashion ecommerce business and I’ve always looked up to him since then as a leadership role model for focused business growth. He was super helpful and open with advice and insights back then and I’m excited to share his candid Q&A with you all on The New New Shit!
James, thanks for being on The New New Shit. Let’s start off with your founding story. How did you decide to start ThredUp?
Back in 2009 when I was in grad school, I took a handful of men’s shirts to a local consignment store to try to make some money. After being told my clothes weren’t worth anything because they weren’t luxury brands, I saw a clear market mismatch and a huge opportunity. I knew these clothes from quality brands like J.Crew and Brooks Brothers had to be worth something, so I set out to create a better solution for people to sell clothing that had a lot of life left in it. ThredUp was born 18 months later, and today we’ve recirculated more than 200 million unique secondhand items and prevented nearly one billion pounds of carbon emissions. And we’re just getting started!
ThredUp is famous for making it super easy to sell clothing. You pioneered the idea of “Clean Out Kits” that let anyone easily mail in unwanted clothes in bulk. Where did these kinds of ideas come from?
Through my early research and my own experience, it was clear that the biggest obstacle to people selling the clothing they no longer wear was the inconvenience of the process. I wanted to create a system that made it as easy as possible for people to get rid of their unwanted clothes and get some money back in return. This led to what is still our signature innovation, the polka dotted Clean Out Kit. Customers simply fill a bag with up to 30 pounds of unwanted clothes, shoes, and accessories from any brand in their closet and send it to us, where we do all of the work to make those items available for resale on ThredUp. This makes it incredibly easy for people to sell their clothes and has been one of the most important pieces to our success. Fast forward to today, and the Clean Out Kit has revolutionized how people clean out their closets, and hundreds of retail stores offer Clean Out Kits in-store today - from J. Crew, to Madewell, to The Container Store. Our ultimate goal is to get a Clean Out Kit in every American closet so we can amplify our impact even further.
ThredUp is also known – and kind of unique – for its wide array of major retail partners. Walmart, Athleta, Macy’s, etc. What’s the story on how those partnerships started to come together for ThredUp?
Early on when ThredUp was a startup, we felt like we were taking on the retail world. As we got traction and scale, the rest of the industry started to take notice. What became clear is that resale was always going to be part of the story (a secular trend), and the forward-thinking retailers – as well as those with an inherent sustainability ethos and awareness of how circular businesses operate – figured this out and came to the table to see how our platform could serve their customers and strengthen their businesses. In 2018, we formalized our work with retailers and brands through our Resale-as-a-Service offering, which powers resale experiences on behalf of dozens of brands – from global brands like Tommy Hilfiger and J. Crew to heritage brands like Madewell and Michael Stars.
You’ve posted on ThredUp’s blog about incredible impact. Over 1 billion pounds of textiles saved from landfills! How do you think about and measure the impact of ThredUp?
Impact is no longer a niche concern; it's a driving force behind many businesses. At Thredup, we believe that every decision we make – from the materials we use in our packaging, to how we foster diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within our workforce, to how we approach customer privacy – should all contribute to a positive impact on the world just as much as it contributes to building a successful business. We're incredibly proud of the strides we've made in helping to build a growing circular economy. By making it easy to buy and sell secondhand, we've extended the life cycle of more than 200 million garments and diverted them from landfills. And we're constantly searching for new ways to reduce our individual and collective impact on the environment and be good stewards of our local communities. As ThredUp grows, so does our impact.
Is there anything else you'd like to add about ThredUp or your approach to the fashion industry today?
With rapid technological advancements in AI, we’ve entered a new era of resale that is enabling us to create a secondhand experience that is as easy and fun as shopping new. I see this as one of ThredUp’s biggest unlock since the Clean Out Kit and am confident that by leveraging these tools, we will accelerate our mission to inspire the world to think secondhand first.
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There you have it, folks. First hand insights from the king of secondhand commerce, James Reinhart, CEO and Founder of ThredUp! Big MAHALO to James and I hope everyone is off to a happy, healthy, and prosperous Lunar New Year ‘til next time.
🤓🙏🏼💩