Shein’s Resale Partner Treet Raises $3.5M
On Wednesday, resale provider Treet announced a $3.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital.
This brings the start-up’s total funding up to $6.4 million. Treet partners with fashion brands like Shein, Dôen and Boyish, among others to create branded resale experiences.
More from WWD
Cofounder and chief executive officer Jake Disraeli said Treet powers the majority of new branded resale experiences (or 43 of the some 73 launched in 2022, per ThredUp’s latest Recommerce 100 report).
While the first funding round was for building a base product, Disraeli said in an interview with WWD the next infusion will go toward team, product, sales and building innovative resale features to “help bridge the gap between buyer and seller.”
He also said buyer-seller matching (akin to a customer receiving dedicated alerts for certain search results) is one big issue in resale Treet is focused on.
“There’s a mess of resale sites out there, but you can’t search by the sku-level to find the exact item.” This is part of the next phase for Treet. Quoting some metrics, he said Treet has a 79 percent sell-through rate to date, or a 55 percent monthly sell-through rate. The average resale listing is about $85 on Treet showing a middle-market demand. Category expansion in new markets and products is another key focus.
On average, Treet customers across brand partners spend 162 percent more with credit from resale programs and data is becoming crucial for brands in their journey toward degrowth.
“Part of that is helping them grow customer lifetime value,” Disraeli said. “We’re measuring everything — which styles are being listed most often and which are selling the quickest. I will say, we’re very new, launching our first brands in late spring 2022. The idea is to capture the most data to inform brands.” Treet has grown GMV more than 500 percent since 2021.
Asked what the response has been to powering Shein’s resale, Disraeli said mostly positive.
“They’re taking on most of the [communications] on that story. There’s been a ton of engagement on the platform,” he said, underlining that Treet’s mission is to “make sure every item that can be resold is resold….It still aligned with our strategy as a company of fostering resale culture.”
As for what’s on the immediate horizon, Disraeli said launch partners this month include New York-based modern lifestyle brand Goodlife Clothing, among others soon to be revealed.
