The Modern Retail Podcast Digiday

Online resale may be a hot retail buzzword now, but ThredUp has been around for over a decade building out its business.
This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, ThredUp CEO and co-founder James Reinhart spoke about rising demand for resale and how the platform has expanded its offerings. Not only does ThredUp have its own marketplace business, but the company has been building out its resale-as-a-service offering, allowing brands to use its infrastructure to create their own consignment programs.
"In some ways, I describe us as really the infrastructure and backbone of how resale works on the internet," Reinhart said.
Compared to some of the recent fast-fashion upstarts, ThredUp is an older player. The company was founded in 2009, and went public in 2021. Still, ThredUp has been able to stay current with recent business movements. The rise of Shein and Temu -- as well as the backlash to their fast-fashion value-focused offerings -- has given ThredUp some helpful tailwinds, for example.
"It's easy to have a boogeyman," Reinhart said.
Reinhart also said that resale as an industry should be treated like other nascent technologies contributing to a greater good, like electric vehicles and solar energy. As such, he's calling for more government assistance as companies try to figure out ways to build new sustainability-focused technology.
"I'm a big believer that government has a role to play in bridging the economic and innovation gap that it takes to develop some of these new technologies," he said.

On this week’s Modern Retail Rundown, the staff discusses how Hoka went mainstream in the last few years and how the company's roadmap will cater to this newfound customer base. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime is facing pressure from memberships like Walmart+, prompting the company to constantly expand its included perks. Lastly, store brands and private labels continue to see growth as Americans trade down from higher-priced national brands.

Century 21 was an iconic New York off-price store that is now trying to return to its former glory.
After filing for bankruptcy and shutting down all 13 of its locations, Century 21 reopened its lower Manhattan locations.
"We are, in fact, an iconic legacy piece of New York, and we're happy to be back," Larry Mentzer, the retailer's chief operating officer, said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Mentzer spoke about the strategy with the reopening as well as plans for the future.
The retail landscape has been transformed over the last four years -- and Century 21 has had to reckon with those changes. As part of the reopening, the company dramatically cut down its store size as well as the types of products it sells. Now, it focuses predominately on apparel and less on areas that didn't sell as well, such as home goods and kids shoes.
"We really made a conscious effort to edit the assortment, keep it tight, turn faster, carry less inventory and show the customer really must-have designers and must-have items that you can't come back tomorrow and get it," he said.
While foot traffic and sales have gone up and down over the last year, Mentzer says things are looking promising. "I can tell you that Q1, which was February, March and April of 2024, was better. And Q2, which we're just recently rolling into, is incredibly better. So we're excited about the summer," he said.

On this week's Modern Retail Rundown, the staff dives into all the hurdles retailers and platforms face. Target, for example, announced plans to lower many of its prices ahead of lackluster earnings. Amazon, meanwhile, is reportedly updating Alexa with new generative AI features -- and allegedly planning to sell it as its own subscription. Lastly, Macy's reported its earnings and said it's beginning to see new traction.

Resale has proven difficult for many players in the apparel space, but KEH has made it work for the camera industry.
KEH has been around for 40 years, beginning first as a used camera business. It's grown into the leading platform for pre-owned camera gear. Today, the company continues to see year-over-year growth and is profitable. CEO Noah Treshnell joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about KEH's history, as well as his vision for the future.
One of the real lessons Treshnell has learned is that online resale may not work for every type of product. It's usually grouped in with apparel, which is a difficult business margin-wise. But for more expensive products like cameras, the model has proven to work especially well.
Brands have to ask, he said, "Is it a category that dramatically drops off in terms of retaining its value? So, is the depreciation curve shallow? That's very important, especially in e-commerce."
Lucky for KEH, its products work for a profitable resale business. With resale being such a buzzy word, the business is only continuing to grow.
"We've got tailwinds behind us and we're going substantially faster than even the market is growing," he said. "And that's really a testament to the team and our customer."

This week's Modern Retail Rundown kicks off with an abridged history of Under Armour’s plans to overhaul its business, which dates back as far as 2017. Meanwhile, Shein has reportedly attempted and failed to get into the National Retail Federation multiple times as it prepares to go public. Last, Costco and Uber Eats are teaming up to bring grocery delivery to people without a Costco membership.