“A Level of Omnichannel That’s Never Talked About”

Phillip: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast about the next generation of commerce. I'm Phillip.

Brian: [00:01:28] And I'm Brian. And today we have a very exciting guest with us, Karin Dillie, VP of Partnerships at Recurate. Welcome, Karin.

Karin: [00:01:36] Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Phillip: [00:01:40] It's like two years overdue, Karin.

Brian: [00:01:43] It is. It is overdue. We've known you for so long and you're so good at talking. I don't know how we haven't done this already.

Karin: [00:01:50] I was just waiting for my invite, you know?

Phillip: [00:01:53] Ugh.

Brian: [00:01:54] Oh, it's on us.

Karin: [00:01:56] It eventually came through Twitter, which is actually my preferred way of interacting with the media. I don't know if I told you, but I was in the New York Times a year ago and that came through a Twitter DM.

Phillip: [00:02:07] For real? Hey...

Karin: [00:02:08] Listen anything's possible on Twitter.

Brian: [00:02:10] All good things happen on Twitter. Eh.

Phillip: [00:02:14] The end of democracy also can happen on Twitter. It's a balance. It's a balance.

Karin: [00:02:18] So we'll take the good ones like this.

Phillip: [00:02:22] Karin, we're longtime fans of and partners with Recurate. But for those who are uninitiated, give us a little bit of your story and what your platform does.

Karin: [00:02:31] Yeah. So Recurate started two and a half years ago. I joined about a year and a half ago now. We started as a way for brands to reclaim resale. So our Founders, Adam and Wilson, saw that there was this massive expansive growth in resale between Thredup and The RealReal, and Poshmark at the time, Depop was really gaining traction in Europe and they had this brand experience. Wilson came from GAP, Adam came from the industry, and they were both like, "How can we help brands take back this behavior that customers are doing?" So they created a SaaS platform, essentially technology that integrates directly into brands' eComm, and allows them to own resale. What we've really grown into in the past two and a half years is a resale operating system. So we started with peer-to-peer, similar behavior to what you do on eBay or Poshmark, engaging directly from one customer or the other. But now we've really expanded since we want to help brands interact with their customers and meet them where they're at. There are a variety of different ways you can do resale. And we're the technology backbone, really, the operating system that brings that all together, all directly on the brand's eCommerce site. So it's using technology to reach more customers and expand, which I think is what everybody wants to do. I personally came from Sotheby's and The RealReal and at Sotheby's, I mean, I feel like my whole career is just kind of going lower down in value, which you could question that maybe.

Phillip: [00:04:02] {laughter} The luxury tiers.

Karin: [00:04:04] Yeah. Like every year it's like cheaper and cheaper stuff. But I actually think that's a great thing about resale because it means that resale is becoming much more accessible. Technology's really expanding. I mean, when I left Sotheby's in 2014, they were still using triplicate forms. Do you know what those are? It's the three, white, yellow, and pink. And you like right on it and it's literally where the CC: carbon copy came from and we used to give those to clients. So the fact that now I talk about APIs on a regular basis is a huge upgrade.

Phillip: [00:04:43] I mean, that's like it's a career unlock, some might even say. We actually, speaking of career unlocks about a year and some change ago we had you at a dinner and we were sitting around talking at the time. And I think we were sort of opining on how really established resale marketplaces do their own primary research. And they really set out to not only measure the total addressable market and the needs in the market, changes in consumers, that's creating new opportunities for them and enabling sellers and buyers to meet in a marketplace. But they're saying something definitive and they're using that to their advantage, not just for PR but to also guide the future of their product. So I was really taken aback, not offended at all that I wasn't on the media pitches for it because I feel like I should have been. Got an embargoed copy here at Future Commerce.

Karin: [00:05:38] That's on my team. I'm sorry.

Phillip: [00:05:41] Totally fine. I had to hear about it from Footwear News of all places. Shoshy is a beautiful person. But I said, "Wow. What an amazing sort of full circle is that we sat with you, and talked about wouldn't it be cool if Recurate did some primary research," and here you've done it. You just put out your first report. I think it's your first report.

Karin: [00:06:05] It is. Yes.

Phillip: [00:06:05] And it's sort of the state of resale as...

Brian: [00:06:09] Recurate Resale Reports. Great use of alliteration there.

Phillip: [00:06:11] Yeah.

Karin: [00:06:12] Thank you.

Phillip: [00:06:13] Oh, it's like Brian's most favorite thing on planet earth.

Brian: [00:06:15] I do like alliteration.

Phillip: [00:06:17] So I'd love to hear a little bit about sort of how the piece of research came to be and what are some of the things you discovered in it. Because I think that that's well, firstly, it's a great excuse to get you on the show today, but also there's something in there that I really want to pull on. So, yeah...

Brian: [00:06:32] There are a lot of things I want to pull on in this report.

Karin: [00:06:34] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I think it started because Adam in particular, I've been working at The RealReal for years and so there was just so much research on the primary market around retail. We do every quarter, there's tons of analysis of what's going on in retail, and what's going on with consumers. And in the past few years, there has been this start of resale report. So understanding what's happening in resale. When we were at The RealReal, we did those and The RealReal focused a lot on what the value you can get for your goods is, which makes sense for what their price point was and what they were tracking. So they were looking at a lot of trends in resale value, specifically focused on what are great investment pieces, things like that, which was great to see. But then when we were having conversations with brands, they were like, "Well, what is our role in this and what do our customers want from us as a brand?" And we had a hunch in talking to customers and starting very early with brands like Peak Design and Mara Hoffman and getting feedback from their customers. But [00:07:30] what we wanted to do was dig in a bit more into primary data and really understand the motivations and behaviors that are happening and what consumers want from brands. So that's kind of where this all started in coming together. But I think there were some insights in there that I know that we didn't even expect. It really surprised us. And that is what I think Footwear News and others have picked up because it's more dynamic than a lot of brands or anybody assumed. I think a lot of people assume that it's like there are just buyers and there are just sellers. [00:08:04] And I think the thing that might be interesting to you is this new cohort of customers called Circulars that are both buyers and sellers and how are they behaving and what are they doing?

Phillip: [00:08:15] So let's dive into that a little bit here. I think there's a misconception that the report, I think, reframed for me is that resale is for folks who are of a certain income bracket who are trying to stretch their money or to buy into luxury without the cost outlay. So typically framed as a Gen Z emergent behavior, but it's something that maybe people grow out of later on. I don't think that's what the report is saying here.

Karin: [00:08:42] Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. The big overarching number. [00:08:46] And we worked with Globalscan on the status. Of the 11 [00:08:49] markets that we looked at, which were North America and Western Europe it was really 74% of people are engaging in some sort of recommerce, some sort of secondhand activity. And so that is a massive market if you think about what is potentially untapped and if brands are framing it of like how many of our customers would really do this. To your point, we've talked to a lot of brands who do want to engage with Gen Z, who do want to meet them where they're at but also don't want to alienate their current customers that may be Gen X or millennials or even boomers. So how do you balance both of those things? And so this report, the research we did, became very clear that you can touch across the age and gender, across all these kind of income brackets as well, and really tap into behavior that's happening.

Brian: [00:09:38] Yeah. If you think about like resale as it happened in previous generations, it just happened in different channels, but it happened a lot. There was a lot of resale, like buying and selling going on. It's just now we can track it all and we can monitor it and have it be part of add to the brand as opposed to like just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere with no record that it's even happening. So I think it's no surprise to me that like boomers and Gen X are actually like deep in on resale. I saw these buying habits, purchasing habits for years growing up. It just didn't happen in the channel that we wanted it to happen.

Karin: [00:10:20] Exactly. Exactly. And it's a little deeper in the report, but I think it's worth calling out that 63% of people want brands to do more. And so there's that element as well. To Brian, your point is that customers are already doing this, some version of it, whether it be localized or online, and they want more help in doing it well. There's definitely like a mismatch between people's intentions and what they can actually do. And so we really kind of wanted to double tap into that to see, well, what do you want from brands and what would change if brands offered resale. And the big things, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned, Phillip, that you thought it was like people who want the same quality at a lower price point. And that was the number one reason that most people want to buy. I think a lot of people just assume it's all sustainability people. It's all people who just want to be green all the time and all they care about is green when really there is kind of this variety of factors that play into it. A lot of them want to try a new brand, so it's essentially de-risking that process of buying a new brand.

Phillip: [00:11:23] Right. Sure.

Karin: [00:11:23] And so you can feel out the quality, you can understand what the materials are made of, how it fits you at that lower price point, and then come back and buy full price if you want to. We also just I mean, we see this with Clare V a ton in their handbags. People love Clare V handbags. if you know the look of Clare V handbags. Like I walk around Brooklyn and I'm like, "Oh, she has good taste. She has a Clare V handbag," and it's just this fanaticism about the brand. And those brands do really well with resale because people want to build out a collection. They want to buy. And then if they don't use that bag anymore, they'll sell that bag and buy a new one. So there's also this idea of how do you build what traditionally has been called loyalty, but really is on a new level when you think about omnichannel between online, in-store, and resale is another now component of that.

Phillip: [00:12:15] It's funny because this is an element of omnichannel that is never talked about. Yeah, I mean and I think honestly the power of a platform like Recurate that can actually help bring the types of programs that we may have seen from, like Eileen Fisher that were like incredibly bespoke five, six years ago, they're now available to any brand. That's the direct to consumer era in a nutshell, is that everything should be able to be a first-party engagement and first-party relationship with the brand. That's what I want as well. And I am that consumer, too, you know, I have a Telfar handbag. I carry it around. I like when people point at me because of it. Those are the kinds of things that I think we are all experiencing to some degree. And we all have different reasons for participating in the channel. It's the omnichannel participation that I also buy new as well. It's not because I'm in one channel or another exclusively. The brands need to learn how we create this omnichannel relationship with resale in the same way that we've done with channel flexing for buying IRL or turning to Amazon for staples. There are reasons for every channel to exist with the same consumer.

Karin: [00:14:20] Yeah. And Brian, you mentioned also this data or like lack of data that we've had around resale and that was something that Adam and Wilson when they created what they wanted to build for Recurate or like the idea, that was a huge part of it. And so we're actually you'll see, I mean, Eileen Fisher works with a company on their resale. There are other companies that do resale, but they don't integrate directly into that eComm. And that's really where Recurate stands apart because we wanted all that resale information to become data for the brand. So it's not like you have like, "Oh, this is what I do over here," in the same way people used to do this with eComm like "Oh eComm is totally separate from in-person," and now they're trying to do the work of bringing those together and bringing those experience and data together. We wanted them to really start their resale channel with all of that data integrated on their site and you could track it. So before you sold a Clare V bag and had no idea what happened to it, where it went, how long a customer had it, if she came back. You just don't know any of that information. And now that's all part of their data on their back end, where they can track all of that customer behavior through the lifecycle. And then Another Tomorrow took it to the next level where they have unique digital IDs on every single item. And so they can track quite literally through the life of an item. And I used to think about this a lot at Sotheby's. People would write the provenance, like who owned it on the back of a painting. And it was like a very janky and not very authentic way to track who owned things. But it was using technology to the point we're talking about earlier to scale resale is a way to do that. And now Another Tomorrow we'll know who owned it first, who owned it second, all of that.

Brian: [00:15:59] Like Carfax almost.

Karin: [00:15:59] Literally like Carfax. And my thinking, and I think we talked about this on Twitter, Phillip, is how do you move that behavior of buying for investment down the value chain? And how do you help people think about all of their purchases as an investment rather than just ones that are above five, 10,000 dollars?

Phillip: [00:16:21] Brian, we found that in our Vision study two years ago.

Brian: [00:16:25] Yes.

Phillip: [00:16:26] There's a, [00:16:27] just citing the data point off the top of my head, but 81% of consumers in our study in 2021 said that they consider with all purchases what happens to that purchase when they're done with it. And that changes the state of the way that you talk yourself into value. So whether you decide to buy more premium because you believe that there's a higher residual value costs, you're now making that calculus on brand affiliation or brand loyalty based on the resale value before you've even spent the money to begin with. That is a completely new behavior that technology has enabled. Not because resale never existed or because estate sales or because garage sales or because Goodwill never existed or consignment shops never existed. Because technology has made it so pervasive that that behavior can be a psychological calculus that everybody's making all the time. [00:17:19]

Brian: [00:17:19] It's actually educational. The thing is like something that people didn't even understand that they could do and they didn't necessarily understand the value. And now it's like, oh, wow. It's not just about consumption. It's about the whole life cycle of the product. And there's opportunity for, yes, there's going to be things that always devalue, but some things might increase in value. I think another really interesting thing about this is you talk a little bit about brand loyalty that will increase. I think there's also an element, and back to your point about data, brands often have extremely loyal customers that they never see interact with their brand at all because they are scouring the web for secondhand purchases and none of that data is being captured by the retailer. There's no way to market to them or...

Phillip: [00:18:16] Maybe like Nielsen or IRI or someone's quantifying it somewhere, but it's not that first-party relationship, right?

Brian: [00:18:22] It's not a first-party relationship. And it's hard to go 1 to 1 with that customer with that kind of data. And so now you can capture that. And I think that's another huge part of this is oftentimes those that are involved in resale, like the Circulars, as we mentioned a little earlier, which I do want to talk a little bit more about, but those are actually the most loyal customers. The reason why they're scouring the Web to go find the resale item is because they're so loyal. They're going to spend more time on your brand than other people are. And those Circulars that come back and sell it and understand the value of the brand are actually a net add to your brand.

Karin: [00:19:08] Yeah, there's a lot of conversation around, and no one's quite quantified it yet, and I think it will take a few years to fully suss out is resale just replacing consumerism. And when we first got this data, we saw that Circulars change out their closet way more often than buyers, just buyers or just sellers or nonactives. And we were like, "Wait, is this a version of that?" And when we dug into the data a bit more, it became clear that to your point, Brian, they look for things that have value. They use them, they take their Instagram pictures, they wear it on their night out, and then they sell them. And so they are loyal to a brand and they are interested in this true circularity of not keeping things in a closet for years on end that you don't wear, that just sit there and take up space. And so it's really a different behavior that right now no one is super equipped to totally understand because it's kind of disparate all over the place. So that is one of the advantages of having all that data within your brand ecosystem is that you can start to understand that behavior. I also just did want to point out a data point. We double tapped on the data that you all got back then, and 57% of sellers want at least half the value when they resell an item of what they paid for it. So there's like they're moving from being like, "Oh yeah, I think about what I'm going to do when I buy something. I think what I'm going to do after I use it," and moving into like "I know exactly what I want to do when I buy something new. I want to sell it and I want to sell it for this value." Peak Design has a really cool... They added to their PDP for their new items, like a bar that says "You can buy this secondhand for..." And then it lists the top price of the item and you can click in and see, oh like these are the items online secondhand. So they list a new item, a new price is $260, but you can resell it for $160. As a buyer, you're like, "Well, then that's really only $100 for me over the course of a year of using this bag." So it's just a very different way of thinking that brands are starting now to understand what their customers have already been doing.

Phillip: [00:21:17] That's a conversion. That's a conversion lever for the new purchaser as well.

Karin: [00:21:22] Yeah, exactly.

Brian: [00:21:23] People are businesses. That's what it comes down to. They're operating now... Like this is data for them to be able to make better decisions as household businesses.

Karin: [00:21:35] Yup.

Phillip: [00:21:36] Let me ask you. Brian.

Brian: [00:21:37] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:21:38] I don't know if you're this consumer or not, because I've been in your truck and your truck is extremely old and made of steel.

Brian: [00:21:47] It is.

Phillip: [00:21:47] But my thinking is, I used to lease cars exclusively. And so I've probably had ten or 12 cars in the last 15 some years. And you always get that outreach at some point where you're at this tipping point, where it's worth more to the dealer, it's worth more on the resale market than it is for you to finish out your term. And because of the state of the way that the dealer hierarchy works, at least in the United States, is like you kind of have this captive relationship and that's the captive marketplace. So they're going to incentivize you to come back, you're going to get you a new car. They've got a really valuable high-margin vehicle that they can now sell to a thirsty second owner. So why aren't consumer brands doing this all day, every day? Now they have all this data on who already owns the product. Why aren't they incentivizing them to come back, resell it and buy a new one? That seems like the completion of the circular is turning the buyer into a seller. That should be something that brands are motivating. How do they do that?

Karin: [00:22:51] Yeah, so a lot of it is letting them know that they have the option to do it. So a few of our brands do it like a six month mark after you buy an item and a year mark after you buy an item and say like, "Hey, we hope you use it and you love it and you're wearing it, and it's great. If it is not, then we have a demand for this on the secondary market and we would love for you to list, and this is what we think you can get." And so that's starting that exactly the behavior you're talking about, which is like how do we start engaging them? And I want to note because I do think people get a little like, oh, aren't we just displacing then? Aren't we just having them sell something used to buy something new? And it's like, well, a lot of them are already going to buy the new thing. Might as well have the thing that they're not using in their closet out there to be used and loved.

Phillip: [00:23:39] It's true.

Karin: [00:23:39] And I think [00:23:39] it engages this next question, which is like, how do you take that data and also plan and forecast better for the new items? And I think that's been something that brands have not been great at historically like saying, "Hey, this is how much demand we think we're going to have for our new items." So if you understand the resale market, you can get data on how long do people own items? What are they selling that they thought they would like and then they ended up selling it pretty quickly after they bought it? Those are not things that you want to produce in mass again. And so we're helping them also get that information that I do think actually carmakers have been doing for a while of helping predict demand a bit better so that your secondary market value goes up because there's not as much supply out there. [00:24:27]

Brian: [00:24:28] Yeah, I think one thing that should be in addition to what you're saying is I think [00:24:33] this also allows you to offer things at a lower price point, and increase brand value without discounting as much. So to add on to that, I think that discounting has destroyed a lot of even legacy brands and so displacing that, being able to capture and introduce new consumers or new customers at a lower price point, as you mentioned earlier in the conversation, it might be an opportunity for someone to say, "I kind of want to try this, but I don't want to dip my toe in all the way." This saves you from having to capture that customer, that new customer, still get all of their information, and be able to market to them. If they do love your products, it's going to be so much easier to go recapture without devaluing. So margin goes up. [00:25:32] This is the thing that I think is so incredible about this. I think if you do this right, you should see over the long term increase in margin. The number one benefit.

Phillip: [00:25:45]  [00:25:45]The brand has now the opportunity to capture part of the value of where that resale would have probably taken place anyway or in the best case scenario, keeping something out of a landfill. Because I think really this is the biggest problem is that so much of fast fashion is really, I think what you framed in the report is frequent fashion, is it doesn't have to go to the dump. There are customers out there who would buy it if given the opportunity. They just don't know to even go looking for it. [00:26:17] What's your thought about that, Karin?

Karin: [00:26:19] Yeah, I mean, I think [00:26:19] it's a huge part and I think that's the behavior that the Circulars are doing with or without a brand. They want to do it with a brand. They want to engage more, but they're doing it with or without them. And so what they've decided or the behavior that they're doing is they want to change frequently. They still want to be fashionable. They want to engage in this culture, but they don't want to send it to a dump. They want to buy something that has some sort of value secondhand. [00:26:43] I mean, it was really interesting to see what category customers are buying and selling secondhand. You know, the number one category is mid-price like J.Crew and Made Well because those items can last a bit longer. They have a value on the secondary market but the second group was fast fashion because it's just a lot of it out there, you know, and there's a lot to be bought and sold. And so customers are doing it. And what's really interesting for us is that people talk a lot about luxury resale because there's so much, I mean, it's expensive and there's so much money to be made there and it holds its value. But there's not as much of that product. And so just by sheer numbers, the opportunity is very large for mid-price and fast fashion brands because there's just so much product out there. It's already changing hands and they can help customers change hands faster.

Phillip: [00:29:01] When I think about a mall brand...

Karin: [00:29:20] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:29:20] There might be some mainstay evergreen product lines that are known and identifiable that have names, I think of maybe Express had like the Editor Pant or something like, I don't know, something like that. But everything around that changes so frequently. It really just gets distilled down to like the purple shirt. And that's where I think we tend to have trouble connecting. This is where the brand is best positioned to be able to sell that to a customer outside of a generalized resale platform because to them it's a purple shirt. To J.Crew, it's this shirt is a very important purple shirt.

Brian: [00:29:57] Right.

Phillip: [00:29:58] Give us a little bit on the way that maybe that first-party relationship with the product makes it a better sale or it provides a better value for the consumer because to them they now have a higher awareness of the importance of the piece.

Karin: [00:30:12] Yeah, I mean. I will say that this is all relatively new in this space. And brands with us are trying to figure out how do you talk to your customer and help them understand all of these things. How do you help them understand what value they'll get on the secondhand market? What is hard to find? What is unique? What are all those things? I mean, some are educated about it. Those super, super loyal brand customers will be educated about it. But some of them are new to this space. And I think that's super cool that they have the ability to bring them in. So it's kind of meeting your customer where they're at in a way, and really understanding what their needs are. Should you do an in-store drop off? Clare V did that when they started the program, and you could come in and drop off any item. You got 50% off your next item. And you can redeem that in person and more than half of them ended up redeeming it right then. They bought something right then. So like how do you meet these customers where they're at and really help them understand the value there? I think we truly are still at the early innings of resale as a whole, even when you're talking about Thredup or The RealReal, even eBay, that is like what, 25 years old now? We're still in the early stages. This feels like what eComm felt like 20 years ago. We were like just starting, just understanding. And so how does it grow and develop and how do we marry it with what makes a brand so unique and so interesting to so many of its consumers? So we're also working on that.

Phillip: [00:31:47] One of the like, I want to be a circular I want you to make me into a circular because I have too much crap, right? And I have like a lot of good crap too. I know I'd sell it, but there is like a bar to clear in my mind as a consumer that I feel like I got to clean that thing up before I let it go. I got to take good pictures of it. Gosh dang it. That's really annoying. How did we make that easier? Because that to me seems like it's the mental hurdle. Like the desire's there for sure, but part of me, if somebody knocked on my door and said, "Pay me $200 and I'll sell all the crap that you have." Absolutely. I'll cut the check right.

Karin: [00:32:30] Listen, estate liquidators have been making a killing off that for generations.

Phillip: [00:32:37] {laughter}

Karin: [00:32:38] And so I know that there's a whole group of men, especially in like Palm Springs, who will do that for you. There is a whole space. Actually, at Sotheby's and at The RealReal, one of the teams I ever saw was the trust and estates team. And so this is what a lot of people did. They didn't have the time to go through a whole house of stuff. So people come in and find the treasures and sell those. So that is one way of resale. And Brian, to your point, it has been happening for a long time. You know, but I think what the report revealed is that there are things that brands can do to make it much easier. I think one of the things they could do is like, Phillip, [00:33:10] if you bought something a year ago, it's good but not great, just doesn't fit with your vibe anymore, and you got an email that was like, "Click this button and all you have to do is take pictures of what it looks like now." You don't have to write the description. You don't have to pick the price. You don't have to do any of the copy. You don't have to measure the sizes, which is all the stuff you've had to do for like eBay or Poshmark. If all of that is done for you, you literally just take the pictures and write like it's in good condition. I mean, I just did this with we were testing on Sunday, so I literally just did this, and then you hit "Sell" and it goes up. It's a very different experience. [00:33:44] And then there's like the element I was talking about with Clare V where you're like, "Oh, I've been wanting to go to the store for a while. Let me just bring my bag I don't use anymore and drop it off." And you don't get as much value that way, but it's much easier. So it's really building that resale operating system that meets your customers where they want to be. But all that to say, I think the biggest part is helping customers understand that there is value in their items. And I think that's been a lot of the disconnect. I think more customers would be more motivated to sell if they knew just how much they could get for a lot of the things.

Brian: [00:34:18] Yeah, they'd be willing to spend an hour, you know, driving and packing it up, driving into the store, like whatever. Not an hour, 30 minutes. If they knew they were going to get $300 for the item, whereas they would have probably just donated or thrown it away.

Karin: [00:34:31] Exactly.

Phillip: [00:34:32] I have to wonder. Let me take you down. We had an interesting Twitter exchange wherein you called me deranged, I think, where I said you said what's like the strangest thing that you've bought or sold? Like I'm part of a bunch of fragrance subreddits. And we, I say we, like I buy and sell, partially used Le Labo, Diptyque. You know, I've got candles, I've got fragrances. I buy and sell that all the time. I have to believe that like there are very small, narrow categories of those sorts of consumables that are applicable to resale. Probably not everything. There are probably limits to the kinds of brands that work really well. We've talked a lot about durable goods or apparel, but what are some unexplored areas that might be the brands that might be listening now that might say, "Oh, it doesn't work for us?"

Karin: [00:35:30] Yeah, I laugh because my PR team might kill me. I made a faux pas and said some inappropriate things that I hear do have a secondary market, but like I don't want to be a part of that. Intimates in particular. So it's just its own weird...

Phillip: [00:35:47] Wow, you heard it here first.

Karin: [00:35:51] I'm not trying...

Phillip: [00:35:52] Tell Dakota Johnson, you can sell her brand.

Karin: [00:35:56] I see videos on Tik Tok and I'm like, "You go get your cash, but that's not gonna be me."

Phillip: [00:35:59] Hard pass.

Karin: [00:36:01] So I will say that there are some definitely unexplored areas. I think we've been surprised that honestly, the outdoor space in general, both gear and apparel, hasn't picked up more resale because their customers have been doing it for years in stores, in person. I mean, you go to the bottom of any ski mountain and they're secondhand skis and secondhand ski gear there. And so for them to, we really hope and if you're listening, call us. We want to be partners in scaling that resale because we think there's a massive opportunity there. They create like I mean, they just have fantastic products that last forever. Why not expand your resale other than people who just happen to be at the mountain that year?  So I think that's one area. And then children's resale has been massive too at like local consignment stores for years and years and years. Kids grow out of stuff so quickly. They barely wear it. So how can we scale that across the Internet in a huge way, too? So that's something we're looking at. There's a lot of like gear stuff, like stuff that goes on bikes like baskets and things you trail your kids in on a bike. You guys would know. I don't have children, so I don't do this. But this is like there are so many things like that. I mean, furniture is massive. There are some great localized companies reselling furniture. So there's just I think there's a lot to be done. A lot of it is happening on Facebook Marketplace honestly, and Craigslist.

Phillip: [00:37:25] It's true.

Brian: [00:37:25] What about... This is going to sound kind of out there. But what about B to B? So like there's a lot of commercial application here. Steel. I'm thinking about like steel products or other small business-type products that I'm sure the brand would love to capture that resale.

Karin: [00:37:48] I mean, you even think about it like displays in Target, you know, like they hit a certain point. They don't need these 17 million hanger things anymore. And so I think that there is a massive opportunity there too.

Brian: [00:38:03] Even like beyond just like B2B company is liquidating through like an online platform. Like there are a lot of really strong brands in B2B, where these B2B companies have protected their brands so strongly.

Phillip: [00:38:18] Industrial equipment in particular, right?

Brian: [00:38:20] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:38:20] Like kitchen equipment, yeah.

Karin: [00:38:23] Yeah. I'll add it to the product roadmap.

Phillip: [00:38:26] While we're daydreaming... Sorry, Karin, this has gone way off the rails. I need to sell all of the bougie DTC ramen that I bought for $62 and that I'm tired of that didn't live up to the hype. There's got to be a secondary market that.

Brian: [00:38:42] It has a shelf life.

Karin: [00:38:43] It's ramen. So yeah. Put it in your bunker.

Phillip: [00:38:49] {laughter} As we're wrapping up, I know that you've been on your own angel investing journey. Companies like Recurate wouldn't exist without the private market investment ecosystem. What are some things that you are looking at just as an angel investor and like as an investing thesis? And what are some of the things that you feel like are helping reinforce, you know, your continued role in powering resale? Is that also part of your thesis for investment?

Karin: [00:39:20] Oh, good question. It feels like every other week a resale startup reaches out and like, "Can you look at this?" I try to help where I can. Honestly, I think this space is pretty new. So there are some interesting things happening, like a couple of companies I saw that are helping aggregate a lot of these marketplaces. So in the same way that we're disaggregating these large marketplaces, it's like, well, if you really want a J.Crew shirt, here's it from Thredup, here's it from Poshmark and eBay and J.Crew themselves. And here are all the places you could buy it secondhand. I think that's super interesting. So I like seeing innovation that's been happening for new items also happen for resale at a much faster pace, which I think is great. Personally, though, I tend to invest in things totally outside of my realm of knowledge, which is maybe counterintuitive, but for me, I think a lot of what I personally want to invest in is focused on markets that I think have been so under tapped and under innovated. And a lot of the space that I'm in, there's a lot of I mean, there's just a lot of VC money in eComm, and there's a lot of VC money in resale right now. There's just a lot of light on it, which is great from a professional point of view. But my first check was into an app called Arrange which basically helps you set up your life in a really easy way. So if you're like, "I'm going to a wedding in three months," and it backs out all the stuff you need to do to prep for a wedding and puts it on your calendar for you. And it's almost like Pinterest where you're like, "I'm going to a bat mitzvah, and I have no idea what I need to do for that." And someone has already created the plan for you. And so it's taking off, particularly the mental load that a lot of women have in their families, planning out all of these things and putting it all in a really easy way for you to understand. So I am a single woman. This is not my biggest burden, but I see it in so many women I know. So my angel checks tend to go towards areas I think are under innovated, particularly for women and people of color.

Phillip: [00:41:19] That's amazing. Well, it's just an unbelievable pleasure and honor to be able to get to know you through this weird little thing that we do. Like, it's no, this is incredible. We meet such quality people and to be able to I don't know, work together is kind of awesome too. We are partnered with Recurate, and if you are looking for how your brand can activate resale, look no further. We figured it out. It's Recurate. It's the best one that there is.

Brian: [00:41:49] So, so many big announcements coming ahead for you.

Phillip: [00:41:52] Yeah, I heard some stuff. You guys, you're not allowed to talk about it yet.

Karin: [00:41:56] There is some tea before we hit the record button, but all in due time, I'll also say to that that you two are my favorite to see at conferences. I feel like we're on the conference circuit together, so if anyone's listening, come join us on the conference circuit. Like waves and hugs in the middle of a large crowd of strangers.

Phillip: [00:42:14] I love it.

Brian: [00:42:14] And dinner.

Phillip: [00:42:15] I love it too. And many a meal to be shared together. Karin Dilie, so amazing to have you on the show. We'll have to have you back just to like maybe hang and talk shop. I'd love that myself as well.

Karin: [00:42:27] We've got some good stuff coming up, so we'll have some good stuff to talk about.

Phillip: [00:42:31] We will drop some links in the show notes, including where to get the report. I'm guessing it's Recurate.com these days.

Karin: [00:42:38] Recurate.com/ResaleReport. Easy.

Phillip: [00:42:41] Fantastic. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Karin.

Brian: [00:42:43] Thanks, Karin.

Phillip: [00:42:44] Thank you all for listening. If you are wanting to get a hold of all of the best insights and you want to get it first, well, I mean, after we get on the media distro list for Recurate so that we can have reports like... {laughter}

Karin: [00:42:59] We're on it.

Phillip: [00:43:01] You can get all of that at FutureCommerce.fm, and the best news around the world of eCommerce and retail marketplaces and direct to consumer in your inbox three times a week. FutureCommerce.fm/Subscribe. Thank you for listening to Future Commerce.

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