The second-hand market is on the rise! Following Poshmark, ThredUp files for IPO

North American secondhand clothing retailer ThredUp, which made its initial public offering filing public on Wednesday, disclosed a full-year loss ahead of its IPO.

According to its filing, ThreadUP was founded in 2009. The platform aims to make used clothes the new normal and create a more sustainable future for fashion. ThreadUP has designed a modern resale experience and uses big discounts to attract buyers and sellers. So far, it has processed more than 100 million second-hand items from 35,000 brands.

To power this marketplace, thredUP has built an infrastructure that redistributes 100 million unique garments through proprietary technology , data, and logistics.

thredUP recently expanded its platform with Resale as a Service (RaaS), powering resale for the world's leading fashion brands. As a pioneer in circular fashion, thredUP reduces fashion's impact on the planet and delivers economic value to consumers and brands.

E-commerce platforms have benefited during the pandemic, with a string of digital resellers, including ThredUp peer Poshmark and ContextLogic, the parent of shopping app Wish , going public in recent months.

Not to be outdone, ThredUp recently filed for an IPO. Prior to this, ThredUP also expanded the platform's business scope through some collaborations. ThredUp's IPO application was submitted a few months after Poshmark filed for an IPO.

In February 2020, ThredUp collaborated with fast fashion brand Gap , allowing consumers to take their old clothes to Gap stores for consignment and exchange them for shopping points, and Gap will hand over the old clothes to ThredUp for processing.

In May of the same year , Walmart reached a cooperation with ThredUp, and ThredUp entered Walmart's official website, selling nearly 750,000 second-hand clothing including brands such as Nike, Michael Kors, and Calvin Klein .

Prior to this, ThredUp had reached strategic cooperation with shopping malls such as Macy's and JCPenney to help shopping malls deal with second-hand clothing.

thredUP's revenue in 2018, 2019, and 2020 was US$129 million, US$164 million, and US$186 million, respectively, and its net losses were US$34.18 million, US$38.197 million, and US$47.88 million , respectively .

ThredUP said it would use $500,000 of the proceeds to launch an environmental policy function and advocate for the reuse of clothing, hoping to profit from the booming second-hand clothing market.

The platform's prospectus shows that as of the end of December, the platform had 1.24 million active buyers and 428,000 active sellers. Compared with December 2019, the number of buyers increased by 24% and the number of sellers decreased by 4% .

“We believe we are in the early stages of capitalizing on a large and growing market opportunity for secondhand apparel,” ThredUp said in the filing. “Increasing numbers of millennial and Gen Z consumers are driving the shift to secondhand products each year. As these consumers mature and generate more disposable income, we expect to benefit from the secondhand market.”

North America

Second-hand market

ThredUp

IPO