Nordstrom Rapidly Adds Resale Items to Inventory
Nordstrom has launched See You Tomorrow, powered by Yerdle, offering shoppers a resale shop both online and in the NYC Flagship store. The move comes just after news that Nordstrom and Rent the Runway (RTR) are expanding their partnership by bringing some of RTR’s gently worn products to a number Nordstrom Rack off-price stores.
See You Tomorrow will be curated by Nordstrom’s VP of creative projects Olivia Kim.
“We want to provide a unique and elevated resale shopping experience that encourages a sense of discovery and provides access to the brands our customers know and love, while giving them a convenient opportunity to participate in the circular fashion economy,” said Kim, “We want our customers to feel good not only about what they’re buying, but how they’re buying it.”
As secondhand sites such as ThredUp, the RealReal and Poshmark have become online destinations, national retailers have started dabbling in adding resale to their stores. Macy’s and J.C. Penney, for example, have both partnered with ThredUp to sell secondhand women’s apparel in their stores.
Resale has grown 21-times faster than the retail apparel market over the past three years and the total secondhand apparel market is expected to double in the five years leading up to 2023 with the resale sector driving the growth, according to secondhand retailer ThredUp’s 2019 Resale Report.
The See You Tomorrow shop inside the NYC Flagship store will feature a café space with sustainable food and beverage through an outpost of Bonberi Bodega. Its merchandise assortment will include women’s apparel, women’s shoes, handbags, men’s apparel, accessories and shoes, children’s wear and a limited selection of jewelry and watches.
At launch, the shop will be stocked with merchandise sourced from the Nordstrom Quality Center (NQC), the facility that receives and processes returned and damaged merchandise from Nordstrom’s full-price channels. All merchandise will be cleaned, repaired and refurbished before it becomes available for sale at See You Tomorrow.
Customers can consign their pre-worn items through a customer intake program in the Nordstrom NYC Flagship store in exchange for Nordstrom gift cards. The retailer will soon launch an online intake program where customers will have the ability to mail in merchandise.
Technology and logistics startup company Yerdle will power the backend operations of the resale platform including cleaning and repairing of product, inventory processing and fulfillment, pricing and authentication of certain luxury designer items in partnership with Entrupy.
“In addition to providing customers more ways to engage with us, See You Tomorrow is another step we’re taking to actively support our commitment to sustainability,” said Pete Nordstrom, co-president at Nordstrom. “We’re excited to show our customers another way Nordstrom is striving to leave the world better than we found it and circular fashion is another piece to this puzzle.”
In addition to See You Tomorrow, Nordstrom’s new program with RTR, dubbed Rent the Runway Revive, is available in 24 locations for a limited time and gives shoppers access to discounted gently worn, ready-to-wear designer items starting at $28.