How to sell clothes online and actually make money
Oct 13, 2021
Dive into the booming world of fashion resale and rental! The hosts break down the critical differences between selling, renting, and reselling clothing. They evaluate Rent the Runway's financial struggles and questions surrounding its business model. The conversation also highlights emerging startups like Queenly, Curtsy, and Rebag, all shifting the retail landscape. Discover how new dynamics and sustainability practices are shaping the future of clothing commerce!
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Natasha's RTR Use
Natasha Moskrenas used Rent the Runway when she moved to San Francisco.
She utilized the unlimited membership for professional clothing.
insights INSIGHT
RTR Pricing Concerns
Rent the Runway's prices seem surprisingly inexpensive, even for high-end items.
This raises questions about their pricing strategy and profitability.
insights INSIGHT
RTR's Financial Struggles
Rent the Runway's financials reveal significant revenue declines and substantial losses, worsened by the pandemic's impact on in-person events.
The company's business model faces serious challenges.
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This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today? Fashion.
Natasha and Danny and Alex got together to dig into the world of fashion resale and rental. It's no small market, giving birth to both public companies, unicorns, and startups. Most recently, well-known fashion rental player Rent the Runway filed to go public, giving us a window in its own numbers.
Those figures led us to a few questions about how best to go about making money from clothes in a retail context. From our chat:
Selling vs. Renting vs. Reselling: To start, we wanted to help you group startups into three buckets: those who sell customers to people, those who rent goods to customers, and those who resell pre-owned goods to customers.
Rent the Runway's numbers: We had some issues with Rent the Runway's business model given that it appears that the company is simply underpricing its clothing items given its cost structure. How Wall Street will price the company, or whether Rent the Runway is hoping to sell to a larger company came into the conversation.
Startups are tearing up old retail models, which we are here for. We are less here for adjusted EBITDA that reads like magical realism.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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