“The Most Sustainable Product is One That Already Exists” feat. Adam Siegel, Founder of Recurate

Feb 12, 2021

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Adam Siegel, founder of Recurate, joins the show to chat about how Recurate is promoting retained sustainability through peer to peer resale.

Adam spent over eight years at RILA, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, leading their sustainability and ethical production program and eventually leading the association's first innovation and emerging technology function, now known as RILA’s Retail Innovation Center.
Coming from his background in sustainability, Adam wanted to start something of his own and noticed the theme of circular economies—particularly the rental economy and the resale economy.
“There are some other niche communities that have grown up like Stock X and Grailed and GOAT that have proven that second-hand products in some cases even have more value than first-hand products.” - Adam Siegel
Adam noticed that once products were bought directly from a brand, the brand lost track of consumers through resale. Recurate started what they call “branded resale,” which brings the benefits of resale directly back to the brands that originally made those products.

Buyers/Consumers of products are able to directly see their purchase history through their brand and are able to directly re-sell that item back to the brand they originally bought it from.
This avoids third-party marketplaces that don’t know much about the item and relists the item for sale with original imagery, description, materials, etc.
“Consumers are looking for higher quality items that retain their value over time.” - Adam Siegel
Brands benefit by accessing data of their product after it’s out of the marketplace: data like how long their consumers hold their product, how many uses they’re getting, resale value, and more.

Recurate is a scalable model because it is relatively low-cost.
Items are directly sent back from the consumer to their original brand, not to Recurate.
In order to keep the peer-to-peer quality uniform, Recurate’s first checkbox is to link consumers with their brands only via their direct purchase history with that brand and product.
The next step is withholding payment to that seller until the item is delivered and the brand confirms the condition of the item.
Brands can implement their own options, but so far, brands have given 100% of the sale price to sellers if they choose in-store credit or 70-80% if the seller wants cash.
Apparel has been the focus of Recurate so far, but they have had early adopters in luxury footwear, denim, handbags, travel gear, outdoor gear, and sporting gear, and they are interested in expanding to kids toys and consumer electronics.
Brands like REI, Patagonia, and Eileen Fisher already care about sustainability, circularity, and long-lasting products as brands. Recurate is trying to create a new model of brand resale that is more cost-effective and scalable for other businesses.

“There are certainly negative ways that you can groom people in this world, especially in consumerism. Why not encourage and incentivize people to do something that’s actually really good for the world? I think that using Recurate as a platform on which to build consumer and customer loyalty, and maybe even lifetime value, with something that’s inherently better for the planet… I love that.” - Adam Siegel
Adam’s hope is that this will minimize discounting of new products because brands more closely understand the demand for products, first-hand and second-hand: “Our hope is that [Recurate] affects more than just the resale market itself, but the broader buying patterns of retailers and brands.”