How Croissant is trying to bring more retailers into the resale space

Croissant believes it has found a way to get more retailers and brands excited about resale.

The business isn't a resale platform, per se. Instead, Croissant users can go to any retailer or brand's website and see a guaranteed resale value price that they would recoup if they bought the product new and then resold it to Croissant sometime later.

"We describe ourselves as the first shopping tool that provides guaranteed resale values at the point of sale and beyond," said co-founder and CEO John Howard. He joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how it's growing its offerings and reaching new customers.

Croissant works in a few ways. It works directly with retailers, in which, on their e-commerce listings, they publish both the retail price as well as the guaranteed buyback price. Croissant also has an app and browser extension that automatically provides buyback values for products that aren't within the company's existing retail partners.

The idea, Howard said, is that "it's not just the out of pocket money that you're spending up front that should be as part of your purchase consideration." Instead, "a lot of what we buy is a value-retaining asset that has ongoing value after you purchase it." In essence, Croissant is letting shoppers know that they could probably make some money back on a higher-ticket item.

According to Howard, conversion rates go up when shoppers see an item's estimated resale value.  But, for now, the focus is on getting more people onto the Croissant platform. That involves marketing, including on new channels like Substack, to make sure people know about the program.

"We're benefiting consumers," Howard said. "And we're benefiting the resale ecosystem, writ large."