🔎 What’s going on?
Resale white-label technology company Archive raises $8 million to help brands power their own secondhand fashion experience.
👗 Cool, what does this mean?
The fund-raising was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Venture with investors such as Alex Bolen, CEO of Oscar de la Renta, Shan-Lyn Ma, co-founder, and CEO of Zola, designer Steven Alan, and Marigay McKee, former president of Saks Fifth Avenue. An impressive array of investors, so what’s got them so excited? Archive’s unique business proposition and technology.
The secondhand fashion resale marketplace is booming and is currently estimated to be worth $130 billion globally. Archive offers a white-label technology, a complete operating system for brands to power their own resale experience. In a nutshell, this means that brands can offer a resale marketplace to a new customer segment without worrying about any of the background logistics required, such as stock inventory, building the e-commerce website, customer service, supporting sellers with listing and shipping. From a consumer point of view, all they have to do is buy and sell pre-worn items directly on a brand’s website. White-label technology means that all the background technology and services are provided by Archive but it’s fully tailored to the brand’s aesthetic.
The major benefit of Archive’s technology, besides the obvious removal of the legwork - is helping brands retain customers, rather than lose them to external second-hand marketplaces such as Depop, Vinted, or Poshmark. Resale-as-a-service is now a major trend in the fashion industry as similar startups on the scene include the likes of ThredUp, Trove, and Recurate.
❓ Why should I care?
The environmental cost of fast fashion is too high and currently unsustainable. The fashion industry is responsible for an estimated 13 million tons of textiles to landfills every single year. Further, it’s estimated that the industry uses around 93 billion cubic metres of water per year. Almost 20% of global wastewater is produced by the fashion industry. For context, it takes 2500 litres of water to produce just one cotton shirt!
🚦 Where do we need to be?
Consumption patterns in the fashion industry need to shift rapidly. In other words, businesses should adopt circularity by producing clothing that lasts a long time and can be reused for as long as possible. Consumers can make an impact by buying less and buying better. They can also increase the lifetime of every piece of clothing they own, by using second-hand marketplaces. A McKinsey report estimated that 347 million metric tons of carbon emissions could be reduced by 2030 if brands introduced radically new business models such as rental, resale, repair, and refurbishment.
👤 What can I do about it?
As a consumer,
- If you must buy new clothes, buy from slow fashion brands.
- Preferably, buy second-hand or pre-loved clothes.
- Keep clothes for as long as possible.
As a fashion brand, you can:
- Explore business innovations such as resale, renting, repairing, and subscription models.
- Encourage shoppers to bring back all clothes to retail outlets at the end of life.
Related: Materials science startup Ambercycle raises $21.6 million