Short Takes: Brand-owned Peer-to-peer Resale Is Here, Gamifying Sustainability
A NEW ‘TREET’ IN BRANDED RESALE: With the billion-dollar opportunity in brand-owned resale, brand-owned peer-to-peer resale is now making its case.
Named from a mashup of “treat” and “tree” — Treet is a resale start-up aiming to cut out the middlemen.
Treet runs on a software platform, operating customized sites for each brand partner (already including Boyish Jeans, Coclico shoes and Époque Évolution) but lets the customers take the wheel in listing items — with the option of pulling data directly from brand order history.
The customers skew on the younger side, with roughly 40 percent of Treet shoppers new to the brands online.
According to Treet’s chief executive officer and cofounder Jake Disraeli, the real benefit is “brand-owned peer-to-peer resale requires drastically less overhead than other resale models.”
Once customers take a few pictures of the item, the listing is submitted to Treet’s team for review before it is posted. Once sold, the seller ships the item directly to the buyer — using a pre-paid shipping label from Treet to be shipped within three days. “Sellers are able to get the highest value for their items sold as store credit or a lesser value in cash,” according to Disraeli. Unlike more precarious reverse logistics for prepping items for resale, the buyer, for better or worse, takes on the final quality check to ensure the purchase is as described.
Without the cost of fulfillment or inventorying, Disraeli said Treet is “highly scalable” with global and cross-industry appeal. Typically, it takes two weeks for brands of any size to launch resale with Treet.
The latest fundraise for the start-up is $2.8 million, including venture capital firms V1.VC and Alante Capital as well as Benny Joseph, the chief technology officer of Allbirds.
Alante Capital said to watch the space where sustainability and e-commerce meet.
Citing a “massive increase of interest from large VCs in the resale space,” Karla Mora, founder and managing partner of Alante Capital, said, “Investments are moving far faster and starting much earlier this year than the past couple of years. Where start-ups once struggled to fill early pre-seed rounds, now they are oversubscribed and hard to get access to. It’s really interesting to witness.”
While brand-owned resale is still in its infancy, Disraeli believes every e-commerce brand will need a circular solution in the future. Soon, Treet will partner with bridesmaid dress e-tailer Birdy Grey and thrift e-tailer Goodfair.
‘GAMIFYING’ PLASTIC WASTE: On Tuesday, nonprofit Free the Ocean launched International Plastic Free Day, sharing a plastic-free pledge, resources and advice on how brands can engage in the future.
“Our goal with this day is not for people to run out and buy plastic-free alternatives, but for it to open our eyes to how much plastic we actually use day-to-day,” said Mimi Ausland, founder of Free the Ocean. “If we understand this, we can consume more consciously moving forward.”
Brands can celebrate International Plastic Free Day sans greenwashing, she said, by making the day about “awareness and education” — not marketing products.
“Brands can ask their communities to try a daily plastic audit, where you see how much plastic you use in a day,” Ausland added, noting that resourcefulness and plastic avoidance strategies are authentic means of engagement.
Free the Ocean also runs a daily gamified trivia platform on Freetheocean.com for users who want to learn more and take action against ocean plastic pollution. Through the nonprofit’s third-party ad network and sales from its zero-waste marketplace, the organization funds The Ocean Cleanup and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, which sequester plastic from sea and coastlines — cleaning up 17 million pieces of plastic to date.
Will the gamification of sustainability be a growing trend?
Ausland thinks so, pointing to the quick consumption of information on platforms like TikTok. “If companies can find opportunities where we can quickly engage in something that triggers a tangible impact, it would be smart to jump on it,” she said.
“Merging sustainability and gamification offers an opportunity to make sustainability more fun and approachable,” according to Ausland. “‘Gamifiying’ philanthropy allows Free the Ocean to keep the experience on the site enjoyable and easy while also providing our community with opportunities to dive deeper into the issue of plastic pollution and offer ways to live more sustainably.”
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