In the latest edition of Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Avalara, Mirakl, Ownit AI, and Ocampo Capital Chris Walton, Anne Mezzenga discuss: If They're Buying Or Selling: Zara Pre-Owned?

For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/rECqY8C92yE?si=4FFNfACPH31T2FJ1

And the service will be available through Zara stores, its website, and its app. And yeah, are you buying or selling Zara pre owned and more importantly, what is your rubric for how fashion apparel retailers should attack the secondhand market, if at all, I sound like A& M there. You do, you do sound like A& M.

Um, I'm buying peer to peer resale like this without a doubt for me if if your brand is at all successful on the second hand market to me there is no reason that you shouldn't be getting a piece of that so you should be involved I think Zara is a brand that is commonly seen both in like physical store consignment second hand consignment stores and online so I think it this only makes sense um The part of it about the like donation and repair part, I'm a little confused unless there's some kind of discount or incentive for the Buyers in this case or the customers that part I guess I wouldn't focus as much on I just go full in on peer to peer but you know, I think It's, it's again, it's another way to bring people into your brand.

It gets them like there's many cases, a lot of retailers, like what we're seeing with some of the brands that re curate, uh, worked with, they're giving you incentive. So if you sell your product, instead of just taking the cash, you can get 20 percent off a new product. Um, you know, that, that cash has a higher value on the brand's website.

You're keeping them in your brand, uh, website and ecosystem. So I love that part of it. I also think, Chris, that the other thing to keep in mind here is as we talk about how we're searching for products and we bring in things like Google Lens or other ways to shop using visual search, I think this could also be a search play for some of these retailers.

Because if that, you know, blazer that I see somebody wearing on the street, odds are, that's a search play. That may be at a year old or something. And if that still exists in Zara's, you know, secondhand resale site, they, they show up on that and they capture that, that image in that site, because they probably have the highest quality image of that product versus something that, you know, somebody posts on Poshmark or something.

So I think you get people there too. And at the end of the day, it costs Zara So little to make these products that I have to imagine that this investment, which it is an upfront capital investment will pay off in the long run and we'll see, um, an increase to traffic and to, um, spend at Zara compared to other retailers.

But what are your, what are your thoughts here? I mean, I think similar to similar to yours. I mean, I think the, the questions I want to ask you a little bit more just to get your thoughts on is cause you, you definitely know this subject more than I do. So, um, So you're saying that any fashion apparel retailer that, um, Whose brands are being resold on all these traditional sites.

They should be thinking about this to the same degree that Zara is. And so without a doubt. So my question though, is as we double click into that, so, you know, there's different ways to do that, right? Do you, do you recommend that people own the inventory or do they? No. So you just, you're, you're brokering the transaction, like you're brokering the peer to peer transaction, like recently, a lot of people doing okay.

Um, and then do you do this through your own site or do you do it through like a A standalone site, a third party site, like, you know, how do you think about that? I think if you can do this within your own site, that's the best way to do it. I mean, by all means, people poke holes in that argument, but I just think that the, the more you can keep this all happening in one place versus, I forget what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago with Ben Miller on the show, but like, Oh, it was Ikea resale.

Like you have to go to a different site. Like that, that is. Not the experience that people want. In that case, like you're, you're better off. Like now you have to figure out how to drive people to that site versus your own site. But I think, yeah, if you can keep this on your own brand site, that is where you win.

And then my last question for you, Ann, is like, how much do, how much does like the authentication of the garments come into play and how should the retailers think about that? And then, and then what is the customer service point here? Cause that's the other thing that concerns me. Now you're getting into customer service interactions for peer to peer interactions that go wrong, which is a different muscle memory to use than say your traditional, like, Hey, I've got a problem with my Zara garment that I just purchased at the store.

I just purchased online. So how do you think about that? I mean, yes, I think that's something that you have to factor in as part of the capital, part of the capital investment, but other than that, All in all, I think like for, you know, the peer to peer sites run on reviews, they run on like peer reviews and things like that.

Like there's so many steps in the process. So I think that makes sense. And then the authentication perspective here too. I mean, again, this is where Recurate was so smart. And especially looking at like, I have the record that you purchased this item. At my store at, on this date, we can even use the same images that you put.

Like, I think that that's like truly a way to make sure that you're successful. Um, in this peer to peer transaction, it's just, it's. To me, it makes so much sense and there's money to be had here. And there's no reason that, you know, Poshmark or, um, you know, any of the other like sites, consignment sites should be making the money off of your, your brands.

Right. Which is a great point. Cause if you think about this the right way, that there's, there's a closed loop, uh, aspect of this from an authentication perspective. If you're doing it through your own website too, that's cool. Yeah.