Making the 28 Billion Dollar Resale Economy More Accessible ft. Recurate Co-Founder Wilson Griffin

Olivia R

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Impact Everywhere Podcast

4 min readFeb 28, 2021

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Ep46: https://impacteverywhere.org

Recurate is minimizing fashion’s environmental footprint by streamlining the sale and purchase of second-hand goods. Today we speak with Recurate co-founder and COO Wilson Griffin for insights into how their incredible platform is innovating the resale industry. We open our conversation with Wilson unpacking the state of the resale market. After walking us through the pain points that people have when accessing this industry, he explains Recurate standardizes buying and selling while making the process easier and the logistics more efficient. A key part of their offering, Wilson highlights how their platform benefits both brands and brand-loyal customers. Following this, we explore how Recurate taps into existing customer behavior to help brands develop deeper relationships with their customers, all while promoting sustainability.

Later, we ask Wilson about how he met past guest Peter Dering and his influence on Recurate’s business strategy. He then shares how Recurate’s model aims to revolutionize resale. We round up our discussion by touching on how Wilson sees the role of business in achieving ambitious climate goals and his take on the likelihood of a circular economy based on subscription and renting, not ownership. Check out one of the links below for the full episode and to hear more about the environmental impact of resale and what Recurate is doing to make it more accessible:

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Key Points From This Episode

The current state of the resale economy is difficult. A lack of consistency in information in listings on sites like eBay can make some consumers reluctant to buy second-hand, while the time-consuming aspect of making an accurate listing can hold people back from selling their items.

Recurate makes buying and selling second-hand easier by integrating it right on the brand website. Your purchase history makes it easy to list directly from the site you purchased, and Recurate handles all the back-end work.

The benefits of an economy in which items are bought and sold multiple times are numerous, including:
1. The brand is more likely to make their product better quality if they know they will make money for it lasting longer and selling more than once.
2. The brand will foster a closer relationship with consumers who can earn store credit for reselling the item through Recurate, which just offers the brand another sale.
3. The consumer can buy a better quality item for a cheaper price, and it will last longer and have less of a negative environmental impact than fast fashion.

If you are a brand looking to implement Recurate into your model, contact Wilson via email. If you’re a customer wishing one of your favorite brands would implement Recurate, reach out to them and reach out to Recurate.

Tweetables

“People have a range of behaviors when they have something that they no longer use. Our goal is to go after almost all of those sellers by making it easy for them to participate in the resale market.” — Wilson Griffin [0:08:25]

“There’s all these stats about younger consumers preferring experiences over traditional products. We are providing an experience and it’s cool to buy a product that has a history to it.” — Wilson Griffin [0:14:36]

“Our long-term goal is to incentivize brands to make better products and to de-risk high prices for customers, when they know that they can resell that same product later down the line.” — Wilson Griffin [0:21:30]

“It’s difficult to just consume your way out of our climate challenges. We need holistic solutions that address everything.” — Wilson Griffin [0:31:11]

Making the 28 Billion Dollar Resale Economy More Accessible ft. Recurate Co-Founder Wilson Griffin

Key Points From This Episode

Tweetables

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Written by Olivia R