Resale Could Save 32 Billion Pounds of Waste From Landfills This Holiday
Salesforce has made a bold prediction: 17 percent of gifts this holiday season will be purchased through resale channels.
As Generation Z and young millennials flock to digitally native resale platforms like The RealReal, Depop, Poshmark, Vestiaire Collective, ThredUp, StockX and more, Goodwill, the OG of thrifting, decided it was time to get in on the action, launching its digital re-commerce platform GoodwillFinds in 2022.
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Gen Z and millennial consumers have followed, accounting for 60 percent of GoodwillFinds’ customer base since launching, said Matthew Kaness, the nonprofit resale platform’s CEO. GoodwillFinds sells tons of items, including apparel and accessories, electronics, toys, collectible music paraphernalia, homewares and more.
Young consumers’ interest in shopping secondhand could prove valuable from a sustainability perspective, Rob Garf, Salesforce’s general manager of retail, noted. Per the software giant’s data, resale will help save 32 billion pounds of waste from landfills this holiday season.
And Kaness said Goodwill alone helps keep about 4 billion pounds of waste out of landfills annually. In an industry that has major issues with excess inventory and a track record for adding to the textile waste problem, resale could be the ticket toward a greener future.
“Consumers will lead the revolution where they’re thinking [of] secondhand first, which then the demand for new goods drops,” he said. “That’s the only way the industry is going to stop overproducing goods.”
But in contrast to some of its apparel-focused counterparts, like ThredUp, Kaness said apparel doesn’t account for most of the online platform’s sales.
“The lion’s share of the online [sales], it’s not apparel today. In the Goodwill context, the lion’s share of our donations is apparel,” he said.
Kaness also noted that about only a sliver of all Goodwill donations make it online for resale on GoodwillFinds. That, he said, ensures consumers at one of over 3,000 brick-and-mortar locations will have plenty of items to browse.
“What we list online today is less than 1 percent of donations; it doesn’t impact the store experience at all,” he said.
Today, he said, Goodwill has three different subsets of customers: trend-driven shoppers seeking out vintage and luxury pieces; fixed-budget customers on the hunt for items that meet their needs and what Kaness called the “aspirational shopper,” who wants to share that they purchased something secondhand from Goodwill.
In stores, Kaness said, the second subset’s experience will remain the same, in line with Goodwill’s mission.
Resellers shopping in Goodwill stores may find fewer luxury or vintage treasures in store, though.
A fixed-price marketplace strategy that takes into account market value for resold goods gives the online platform the ability to charger higher prices.
Resellers that may have snatched up coveted items for ultra-low prices in stores may now be faced with price hikes if purchasing online. Kaness said that helps Goodwill put more money back into local communities.
“The resellers [are] upset, because we’re taking their margin. They want to come in and get that vintage pair of Levi’s so they can flip it,” Kaness said. “What we’re doing is we’re saying, ‘No, we’re going to keep the margin for mission, not for your business.’”
Even still, he noted, resellers make up about 5 percent of the Seel partner’s customers. That small section of buyers brings in major value, accounting for 40 percent of overall sales on GoodwillFinds.
To help derive value for both resellers and other consumers heading to the site, Kaness said the platform offers luxury authentication, on par with what other marketplaces have done, like in the case of eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee program.
The Walmart-backed nonprofit’s technology venture has not yet prioritized driving in-store shoppers to become online shoppers, but that strategy could be a focus in the future, according to Kaness.
And data from ThredUp suggests that secondhand-savvy consumers will only continue their hunt for secondhand goods. In 2024, 10 percent of the apparel market is expected to be made up of secondhand clothing, and projections show that the fashion resale sector is projected to grow three times faster than the overall global apparel market over the next three years.
As that happens, Kaness said, GoodwillFinds may look to partner with big-time retailers to streamline reverse logistics, helping brands recoup a profit on returns.
“On the supply side, once we get all the Goodwill [affiliates] on the platform—we launched with four, we’re now at 14, there’s [154]… the next phase is how do we leverage our platform for retailers to use us to divert returns?” he said.
