Luxury e-commerce platform ShopWorn has doubled its sales and is on track to hit $20 million by year-end as consumers go on “revenge shopping sprees” – the intense impulse to shop after months in quarantine.
Larry Birnbaum, CEO of ShopWorn, said the e-commerce platform, launched in 2015, was designed to help companies and authorised retailers deal with unsold inventories.
“When we began ShopWorn, we did so with a deep desire to be a supportive partner to the brands who turn to us when their boutiques or authorised retailers need to make room for new season merchandise,” said Birnbaum
Through the platform’s circular business model, customers looking for a sustainable alternative to owning premium items can buy the luxury brands’ unsold watches, jewellery, leather goods, and accessories from past seasons.
“We soon realised just how much further we could go in our core mission of being an asset to brands as all of us become more attuned to our unique responsibilities towards environmental sustainability,” he added.
With more consumers choosing where they spend their money depending on a company’s environmental footprint, luxury brands are using the platform not only as a channel to dispose of unsold inventory but also to help achieve zero waste in production cycles.
Swiss watch brand Luminox, which has been working to decrease its CO2 emissions through a watch recycling program, said ShopWorn offers a better alternative than destroying or dismantling excess inventory.
“We started the watch recycling as a pilot program, but we wanted a reliable push on our overall impact in reduction to the environment,” said Lluis Sole, president at Luminox North America.
“The company is a resource for us to advance our focus on sustainability as we recycle our past season’s merchandise through the platform, giving our prior inventory new life and a new audience,” he added.
This added value, said the company, help increase the number of luxury brands working with the platform by 50 per cent over the past year and customer acquisition for 117 per cent of its projected growth since the start of the pandemic.
The platform is now planning to open in Korea as part of the company’s APAC expansion.
