Posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 by Danny Davies
Twice is an interesting development in the online retailing world post-Recession: an online second-hand clothes store that pays you in advance to submit old clothes, and sells your luxury items on to others at crazy discount prices…
Riding the trough of one of the lengthiest periods of economic difficulty this side of the Great Depression, we have seen an interesting trend emerge in the retail sector, particularly when it comes to online clothes shopping (and discussed further in this insightful article by BrandAlley CEO, Rob Feldmann):
A split between consumers looking for bargains at the cheaper end of the market (shopping at Target or Walmart for example) and those looking for “affordable luxury“: hunting down items by trusted luxury brands, at more affordable prices. The increasing demand for the latter has seen strong online players emerge like Fab.com, BrandAlley or Threadflip.
And now, the aptly named ‘Twice‘ is wading into the ‘affordable luxury’ party with an innovative online take on the second hand clothes store.
Twice works a little bit like a pawn shop. You tell them what you want to sell, they give you an estimate that they would pay you for it and a prepaid shipping label. You then package up your clothes, send them to Twice, they decide if your clothes are good enough to sell on (they look for high quality brands in good condition – with less than 5 years’ wear…), and then Twice pays you for them. So unlike the traditional consignment model, everything is paid upfront: you as a seller don’t have to wait for your clothes to sell to be paid.
However, if the Twice team doesn’t like what you ship to them, it’ll cost you $5 to get the clothes shipped back! Or if you’re feeling charitable, they will send them on to their nonprofit of choice, Goodwill for free.
So if you’re looking for an easier alternative to eBay or Craigslist for getting rid of your old stuff (as long as it’s actually good quality…), Twice is definitely worth a try!
The other side to Twice’s pawn shop-style business model is the re-sell. And the product they’re re-selling onto us consumers is – due to what is clearly a highly stringent acceptance policy – actually brilliant! They only take top quality from sellers, and top quality is exactly what gets spruced up and sold on the e-commerce part of the site. And because it’s second hand, they can pass on to buyers the low prices they paid for the items. Twice is offering free shipping on orders over $49, free returns in 30 days and “24 hour customer service” to sweeten the deal too.
TWICE has found a great alternative approach to attracting “affordable luxury” fashion hunters, and it’s bang on trend. Currently it’s only offering its concierge service for recycling old, luxury clothes to women for now, but we’re told men’s and kids’ clothes are next. Watch this space!
We also have secured All My Faves readers a 15% discount on your first order: Just quote discount code TWICEFAVE15 to get it.
And don’t forget to add our list of the top websites for women to your faves!
