Secondhand is surging but outdated. Trendful hopes to capitalize

The secondhand and resale market is booming.

A recent ThredUp analysis projects the resale industry will hit $53B by 2023 and $77B by 2025. The resale industry refers to businesses buying and selling used items like clothing, antiques, household goods, equipment, and more.

The secondhand surge is driven by a variety of factors, including shoppers’ interest in sustainable options as well as discovering unique and rare items. In the meantime, ongoing supply chain issues have forced big retailers like Target to eat shipping costs while others like Kohl’s have raised prices.

But for resellers — most of which source their products locally or domestically — supply chain woes have been a boon. Resale marketplace Thredup’s prices have dropped about 15 percent in the third quarter, per CNBC.

“While many retailers have been forced to raise prices due to inflation or supply chain pressure, we do not have the same level of exposure." —ThredUp CEO James Reinhart

As giant resellers like ThredUp, The RealReal, Etsy, and OfferUp benefit from scale and name recognition, there are hundreds of thousands of small resellers that are also want to take advantage.

The problem, however, is that many thrift stores, pawnshops, and other marketplaces use outdated and manual systems to acquire pre-owned inventory.

That’s what indie hackers Jacquelyn de la Parte and Mailys Rabot hope to change with Trendful.

The co-founders launched Trendful as an all-in-one SaaS for resale merchants to acquire pre-owned inventory from their customers. Trendful aims to be the Shopify of the resale market, and the duo is drawing on their experience running a resale firm to meet customers’ needs. In fact, the two created Trendful as a system for their own company selling second-market designer products.

“The problem we are solving is the outdated supply chain model,” De la Parte said. “E-commerce SaaS brought innovative ways to connect with demand. Trendful is bringing innovative software to connect with supply.”

Trendful allows users to manage customers' resale offers, as well as manage customer relationships, inventory, shipping, pricing, and payouts. And the company’s resale app integrates with merchant's websites to guide their customers through selling nearly any item in a few steps.

De la Parte and Rabot launched Trendful in June and already are gaining traction. Trendful is netting about $1,500 per month, according to its Indie Hackers product page and its database shows pricing trends on more than 30,000 unique items. Trendful was also recently accepted into the Tinyseed accelerator program.

The company’s basic subscription starts at $80/month and goes up to $2,000/month for enterprise companies.

Another trend that the company hopes to leverage is the growing movement of big retailers launching buy-back and resale programs. Companies like Lululemon, REI, H&M, and many others have launched buy-back and resale programs.

Trendful is also tapping into sustainability demands and the shift away from the traditional linear economic model. In the linear economy, manufacturers make, retailers sell, consumers buy and, eventually, discard their products. As you may imagine, it produces a lot of waste. In 2014, for example, 85 percent of used clothes were not recycled.

Trendful’s software enables what’s referred to as the “circular economy.” The model is a system that rethinks a variety of industries by encouraging sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. Furniture giant Ikea, for example, is a proponent of the circular economy and its buy-back program repurposes used furniture into other items.

In fashion, that means a clothing item is kept in circulation for as long as its value is retained, and then recycled once it’s gone. Levi's Blue Jeans Go Green program, for example, has already recycled and repurposed more than 3.9 million pieces of denim. It also means that companies — such as outdoor gear brands like Patagonia and Arc’Teryx — are using more durable materials so their items can be used by many people.

De la Parte wrote a thoughtful piece on the circular economy you can read here.

Do you work in the resale space or personally shop secondhand items? Please share your experience below!