With tidying-up on the rise, this month our Brands We Love series features thredUP, the largest online consignment and thrift store. We will examine how thredUP is making an impact on the clothing industry by educating consumers about textile waste, creating personalized online shopping experiences and promoting “secondhand first” with compelling collaborations.
At its core, thredUP is about getting consumers to think twice before making a new clothing purchase and to instead think “secondhand first”. On their website, you can find staggering facts about the contribution of clothing to global pollution. Did you know that 26 billion pounds of clothing end up in landfills every year?!
As a company, they have redistributed over 65 million garments to date. Beyond selling gently used women’s and children’s clothing, they also take donations or consign items for you with their Clean Out bag program—just request a bag, fill it up and ship it back.
Just as the clothes it sells are one of a kind, the experience with thredUP is too. With so many unique items to browse through, buying secondhand seems daunting at first. But thredUP makes it effortless with features like specifying your sizes to automatically filter searches, saving searches for specific brands or items and marking items as favorites to easily find or purchase later.
Along with saving personal preferences, thredUP has a series of automated messages that make snagging unique pieces easy. You can get updates to your inbox when new items from your saved searches become available, or find out when a price drops on an item that you marked as a favorite—getting you even greater savings. And, if someone grabs your favorite piece before you can get to it, you can receive a notification via email or push message letting you know if it becomes available again. All these features make finding secondhand items effortless and appealing.
To create awareness of the harmful effects of textile waste, thredUP teamed up with actress Olivia Wilde and Conscious Commerce to create a limited-edition collection of upcycled t-shirts that promote wearing secondhand first. The trio created five designs that are screen printed on various styles of upcycled t-shirts. The #chooseused campaign shows how celebrity and brand collaborations can benefit both a great cause and brand awareness.
Through personalization and smart use of technology, thredUP is creating awareness of the harmful impact of fashion pollution and making it easy, and trendy, to buy used clothing.
Kelsey has over 10 years of advertising and design experience. She is passionate about both the creative and strategic sides of marketing. A former northerner, Kelsey went to Syracuse University and moved to Florida to work for Disney and to escape the snow. She is now a Content Director with Data Axle supporting a major hospitality brand. Living in the Sunshine State, Kelsey loves to stay active outdoors, especially with her Great Dane, Ellie.