Buying luxury goods at retail? Think again. A whole crop of digitally-native retailers are offering up another way, and raising a lot of money to do it. From the likes of The RealReal and rebag to StockX and Stadium Goods, e-commerce-centric companies are making names for themselves by giving consumers a way to get their hands on both new and pre-owned luxury and hard-to-find goods – whether it be buzzy streetwear items or Hermès Birkin bags – as the burgeoning $6 billion-plus American luxury resale market continues to gain steam.
As has been the case in recent years, many of the hottest developments in fashion are occurring at the resale level, where a growing string of acquisitions and significant fund raising is underway. On the heels of FarFetch snapping up Stadium Goods, the budding New York-based sneaker consignment site that attracted the attention (and funds) of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH roughly a year before its acquisition, and Foot Locker making a “strategic minority investment” of $100 million in GOAT Group, the operators of the popular secondary sneaker market, GOAT, more developments have abounded. Here are a few of the most recent …
June 2019: StockX closed on a $110 million Series C funding round, the Detroit-based company has announced. Initially fashioned upon its launch in 2016 as a “NASDAQ of sneakers,” in reference to its application of a stock market model for showing supply and demand for its offerings, StockX has since expanded to “it” bags, luxury watches, and streetwear.
The latest funding – which StockX says it will use to expand its international growth with a specific focus on Europe and the Asian markets – brings its valuation to over $1 billion, and total funding to date to $160 million with investors including model/entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, DJ Steve Aoki, streetwear designer Don Crawley (aka Don C), and Salesforce chairman Marc Benioff.
The company says the funding will also allow it to further diversify its product categories and extend its offline reach with brick-and-mortar locations in key international markets. As of September 2018, StockX was reportedly bringing in $2 million-plus in daily transactions.
June 2019: Vestiaire Collective has raised $45.1 million in funding to help boost international growth and launch new technology solutions. Founded in 2009 by Fanny Moizant and Sophie Hersan, the Paris-based digital resale company currently maintains a base of approximately 8 million truly global members (nearly 80 percent of transactions occur outside of France), and sees 40,000 new items listed every week
The recent round brings its total funding to date to $167 million.
June 2019: Depop announced that it has raised $62 million in funding, while also passing the 13 million user mark. The Milan-based mid-market resale platform, which has found favor amongst Gen Z and millennial consumers, enables users to post, sell and resell garments and accessories. Prior to this round, Depop had raised nearly $40 million since its founding in 2011.
May 2019: Following lingering industry chatter, The RealReal announced an initial public offering endeavor in late May, filing documentation with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and signaling plans for an initial public offering on the NASDAQ using the ticker, “REAL.” The San Francisco-based luxury consignment website – which was valued at $745 million in a funding round in July last year – aims to raise up to $285 million from its impending IPO, funding that would bring its valuation to about $1.57 billion.
April 2019: Looking to get into the resale business on the heels of a year-long partnership with The RealReal, Neiman Marcus Group has taken a minority stake in Fashionphile, the luxury resale site that rivaled Louis Vuitton and Gucci as one of 2018’s “Most Searched Brands.” While the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck told WSJ that the “move is part of a strategy to increase Neiman Marcus’s reach.”
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