As Sourcing Journal writes, Money Keeps Flowing Into Secondhand Shopping. Yes, and this week we will cover Vestiaire’s $80M in a credit line and Beni’s raise of $4M. There is a lot of talk about how secondhand is accelerated by the economy or this or that. The reality is, shopping secondhand allows us to get nicer things for less money. Value is about as basic as it gets for what appeals to customers and secondhand delivers this in a fundamentally new way.

Max Bittner, CEO of Vestiaire is good at raising money. Vestiaire Collective has signed a €75 million sustainability-linked revolving credit facility (RCF) from Crédit Agricole CIB, Société Générale, HSBC Continental Europe, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. Vestiaire is private and it’s unclear how great the financial losses are in building the platform but I am confident this cash was needed as I expect the interest rate isn’t cheap these days.

But what’s interesting about this to me is the linkage between finance and GHG emissions captured in the debt. The debt instrument has “potential interest rate discounts based on performance against key ESG targets, including the reduction of its GHG emissions,” explains Vestiaire Collective in a press release. Of course, there are questions about how such reductions are measured but honestly, for now, the bigger point is they are being structured this way at all–which is exciting both in the recognition that secondhand is critical for fashion emissions and these banks find it important to finance GHG reductions.

In other financing news, Beni, the web browser extension for secondhand shopping, announced the close of its seed round of $4 million led by Buoyant Ventures bringing the total raised to $5M. Congratulations to Beni CEO Sarah Pinner. Beni is an innovative way to make it easier to shop secondhand now across more than 30 resale sites and I expect just one of many we will see in the coming year.

Goodwill’s secondhand site, GoodwillFinds has reached nearly 200,000 available items and CEO Matthew Kaness believes they will catalog over a million items by the end of the year. In earlier posts, I questioned if Goodwill would invest in the technology necessary to sufficiently operate an eCommerce business and it looks like so far the answer is yes. Goodwill has a significant physical presence and bringing these items online will be one more way plus in propelling the industry forward. Right on.

The New York Times in a piece titled, Cheap Meets Eco-Chic on the Ski Slopes, discusses the shift from traditional ski swaps to online-enabled secondhand shopping. Included in this was Burton’s formal entry into resale with an online rental program giving customers the option to rent a kit — a snowboard, boots, bindings, and outerwear — that can be shipped anywhere in the continental U.S. The platform is supported by Arrive who continues to make great progress in supporting brands, especially in the rental space.

And finally, the resale launch of the Plus-size brand Torrid with ThredUP. The program is in line with Thredup’s Resale-As-A-Service (RAAS) but it is exciting to see more inclusive brands in the resale space and worth a call out.

Key Takeaways

1. Sustainability efforts must go beyond PR and are increasingly important to financing and interest rates for brands that can demonstrate GHG reductions.
2. Brands should stay close to how these innovations evolve with new models such as Beni’s browser plug-in and Burton’s rental kits emerging and the new opportunities these create for them in the resale space.