Why Consumers (and Brands) Love Cleaning Out with thredUP RAAS
In 2011, two years after the launch of online resale marketplace thredUP, the company introduced its signature (and 100% free to customers) Clean Out Kits. To address massive levels of fashion waste—the average American throws away about 81 pounds of clothes every year (Good On You 2022)—thredUP set out to provide consumers with an easy solution to keep clothes in circulation and out of landfills.
Fast forward to 2022. According to thredUP’s 2022 Resale Report, 57% of consumers resold (i.e. cleaned out) apparel in 2021 and online resale is expected to grow a staggering 4X by 2026. Enabled by thredUP’s Resale-as-a–Service (RaaS®), brands and retailers can launch their own Clean Out Programs, monetizing their customers’ closets while demonstrating a commitment to sustainability and reuse.
“As the resale revolution continues to gain momentum, participating in recommerce is not only good for our planet, but good for business. Our customers are diversifying their closets, whether with new clothing...or secondhand goods. We’re thrilled to partner with thredUP in offering a sustainable and innovative way to shop for the closet of the future.”
Through the RaaS Clean Out Program, brands provide their customers with Clean Out Kits to turn their gently used clothing and accessories into brand shopping credit. Customers can easily print out a free shipping label online (to use on a shippable bag or box) or clean out using a physical kit obtained from a brand’s ecommerce order or in a store. Read on for more reasons why the RaaS Clean Out Program is great for participating brands:
IT'S EASY: Customers love thredUP's industry-leading Clean Out Kits because they offer the easiest and most convenient way to declutter closets while doing good. thredUP RaaS handles 100% of the backend—from shipping, to processing items and checking quality, to listing items for sale to getting them to new owners. All brands have to do is promote the program to their customers.
EARN REVENUE: With a Clean Out Program, brands monetize their customers’ closets into dollars to spend back with their brand. How does it work? When items in a Clean Out Kit sell, thredUP pays the brand the payout value of those items. The brand then uses those funds to send a brand shopping credit to the customer. Because customers can send in—and earn credit on—a bag or box-full of items of ANY brand (we often get kits of 25 or more items!), RaaS clients are able to maximize earnings vs. what they’d earn with a brand-only take back program.
ENGAGE CUSTOMERS & DRIVE LOYALTY: Offering Clean Out gives brands a meaningful touchpoint for engaging with existing (and new!) customers who love the ease and value of the program, and what it stands for. In addition, brands can add an incentivizing 10-20% booster to the payout of their Clean Out Kits, giving RaaS customers more credit to spend than they’d get with a standard thredup.com Clean Out Kit.
ENGAGE EMPLOYEES: For brands that distribute Clean Out Kits in stores, the program gets store associates pumped! They love seeing their brand take action on circularity.
GAIN INSIGHTS: RaaS offers brands and retailers a window into their customers’ shopping habits with direct insight into what brands are in their customers' closets.
IT’S SUSTAINABLE: With a Clean Out Program, both brands and customers can do good by extending the life of clothes that might end up in landfills. What’s more, customers can consume more consciously when they use a shopping credit earned from giving their preloved styles a second chance!
Today, brands including Athleta, Madewell, Crocs, and Vera Bradley, work with RaaS to offer Clean Out Kits to their customers. With 58% of Gen Z saying brands should play more of a role in reducing fashion’s environmental impact, offering Clean Out is an especially great way for brands to engage younger, sustainability-minded shoppers (thredUP 2022 Resale Report).
For brands looking to experiment with resale, launching a RaaS Clean Out Program is about as low risk and easy (super low tech-lift, we promise) as it gets. What’s more—the items consigned via RaaS Clean Out Kits power the growth of branded resale shops (including your brand’s resale shop, if you choose to have one!). In other words, the more brands that work with RaaS to launch circular programs, the availability of secondhand inventory grows, as does the potential for brands to have an impact.
Want to learn more about working with thredUP RaaS to implement a Clean Out Program? Get in touch!
