Online Thrift Store thredUP Opening Brick-and-Mortar Stores
thredUP, the online secondhand clothing store, is opening at least five brick-and-mortar stores by the end of the year, with the first one opening in San Marco, Texas earlier this week. thredUP is using existing customer data to plan where to open stores and what to stock in each of the stores.
Photo: thredUP
The online startup saw a particularly high density of customers in San Marcos, and therefore decided to open its first store there. Using customer data, thredUP is removing merchandising risks that other brick-and-mortar stores are faced with.
In order to continue to grow the business, thredUP is expanding its reach to new consumers who may shy away from thrift stores by giving them a great in-store experience. For example, if a shopper finds an item in-store that she likes but it’s not in her size, she can use an iPad provided by thredUP to take a photo of the item, and then be shown similar items in her size from across the retailer's entire online inventory, which now is growing by about 1,000 items every hour.
