Summary

Trove tackles the missed opportunity for most brands in dealing with capturing value from the secondary market. Most companies only focus on the first sale of an item, and do not have the IT expertise and resources required to set up logistics to build a meaningful web experience. As a result, the company loses out on recapturing value, and the item itself may end up in a landfill or sold secondhand at a fraction of it’s value. Trove removes the friction in this equation and provides a platform for “recommerce” that allows brands to have buy back schemes and resale capabilities.

Story

Founder, Andy Ruben, initially founded a company called Yerdle, which was based on the idea of an online swap meet. The company did fine, but was having difficulty retaining talent. After a few years, Ruben and his team pivoted the idea to a customizable resale platform, after some key advice from companies like Patagonia that would indicate: “We love Yerdle, but we really wish our items weren’t next to dishwasher parts.” For the first few years, Trove only worked with three brands — Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, and REI. Doing so allowed the company to build out the circular shopping experience, from processing returns to revaluing used items to reselling them in branded online stores. Now, the company works with many more clients building out respective platforms for each of them. Ruben believes that the brand is in the best position to offer the best resale proposition to its customers rather than third party resale platforms that are independent of the brand.

Pic Credit: Bloomberg (right) and Modern Retail (top)