The market for second-hand products is growing rapidly, but how can you integrate re-commerce into your own business? The outdoor online retailer Bergzeit and the Berlin start-up Reverse.Supply have gone together for this pioneering achievement. The Bergzeit Re-Use Shop has been around for about a year. A good time to take stock.
The figures speak a clear language: Within the last ten years, clothing consumption has increased by around 60 percent worldwide. According to Greenpeace, we produce over 70 million tons of clothing every year. These amounts consume enormous resources. The bad thing, however, is that according to studies, around half of all clothing production is unnecessary because the clothing is either not sold at all or is hanging unused in our closets. For years, these forms of “overproduction” have been distorting actual demand. “If we continue with the mass of new products as before, there is no way we can achieve the Paris climate goals,” was the realization of Max Große Lutermann, co-founder of the Berlin re-commerce start-up Reverse.Supply. He himself worked in the fashion industry for many years and knows the problems. “We have to do something to use fewer resources and emit less CO2.” More and more retailers are realizing this and are looking for new solutions.
Prevent more products from being produced
These retailers include Bergzeit, an outdoor online retailer based near Munich, which also operates two brick-and-mortar stores. Bergzeit has been committed to more sustainability for many years, and the retailer has only just officially become a cooperatively organized green electricity provider. Bergzeit is also one of seven strategic partners of Reverse.Supply, alongside Armedangels, Globetrotter, Ortovox, Hessnatur and others. The cooperation started about a year ago. Why is re-commerce interesting for Bergzeit? “Our consideration was that 90 percent of the CO2 emissions arise during the manufacture of the products, only ten percent arise with us,” explains Martin Stolzenberger, Managing Director of Bergzeit. “So if we want to get better, we have to avoid making more products.” Continuing to buy products that don’t need to be re-made is one way to do that. And last but not least, re-commerce is a growth market. Große Lutermann: “Secondhand is now growing 21 times faster than traditional retail.”
Challenge: The number of products
The second-hand shop “Bergzeit Re-Use” has been linked to the regular online shop since June 2022. Around 2,000 products for men, women and children are currently available on the platform. The biggest challenge is getting enough products on the site, preferably with a certain range of sizes or colors. Just for comparison, the regular Bergzeit shop has around 40,000 products, not counting the sizes.
In order not only to be dependent on consumers who offer their used products there, Bergzeit also sells returned goods and returns from the Bergzeit shop that can no longer be sold as A-goods. These products make up about 30 to 35 percent at the moment. Bergzeit is also testing whether its own suppliers also want to use the re-use shop. A pilot project with the climbing brand Chillaz is currently underway. “But the majority comes from the consumer in any case,” says Stolzenberger. In addition, the own share decreases to the extent that the classic second-hand share increases.
The more processes, the more expensive it becomes
The purchase of goods is deliberately simple. If you want to sell used outdoor clothing, you enter the brand of the product online in a pre-made mask, as well as the category, the condition of the product – i.e. perfect, good and okay – and finally upload a photo so that the product can be clearly identified . An algorithm then calculates the appropriate price and suggests it to the seller. If they agree, a shipping label will be generated and the product can be shipped. As soon as the product has arrived at Reverse.Supply in Berlin, employees check the information and at the same time create the product description for the Re-Use Shop. This check takes about two to three minutes, depending on the product. The product is then photographed and sent to the warehouse.
However, the employees cannot check whether the function – for example the water resistance – is still intact, and repairs are also not possible. Grosse Lutermann: “That would simply be too expensive. After all, sellers and buyers want an attractive price, and if we can’t get that, the whole model won’t work. The more processes are stored in between, the more difficult it becomes.”
High complexity of the task
But why doesn’t Bergzeit do the re-commerce itself? The fact is that re-commerce is associated with high costs and additional work for many companies. It’s not just about efficiently setting up processes such as product receipt, checking the goods, stocking the shop, storage and shipping, but also about developing a separate questionnaire for each individual product category after the products have to be checked. Stolzenberger: “We somewhat underestimated the complexity. Clothing is still comparatively easy to put on, other categories are more difficult and some are so complex that we probably can’t even offer them second-hand, such as tents or camping stoves.” The Bergzeit logistics center is also not designed for individual parts, but for larger quantities per item Product. Therefore, the cooperation makes sense for everyone.
Profitable thanks to high-priced products
It will be a while before you can turn re-use into a cash cow, and the business can only be profitable at all because high-priced products are common in the outdoor market. How does the business model pay off? When it comes to calculations, Stolzenberger and Grosse Lutermann let you look over their shoulders. Stolzenberger: “Depending on the condition, we calculate differently, you can roughly say that if a product costs 100 euros in the RRP when new, the price for re-use is between 60 and 65 euros. About half of this is paid out to the owner, the other half is our margin, which Bergzeit and Reverse Supply share.”
For example, an Arc’teryx jacket in black in size M sells well. Or products from Patagonia and Ortovox and even shoes. “In general, shoes are selling very well, which we didn’t expect,” says Stolzenberger.
New target group and new image for second-hand
In order to maintain the price range, Bergzeit wants to get rid of the former ‘dirty image’ of second-hand and therefore prefers to speak of re-use. This is probably justified, because as a current customer survey showed, young Bergzeit customers in particular are interested in used outdoor goods. There is still room for improvement in the classic target group, which tends to be a bit older and with more purchasing power. In general, it is more complicated with the target groups, because there are always two directions that have to be addressed differently: that of the seller and that of the buyer. In order to lower the hurdles for everyone, the products are presented as valuable as possible and – as in the regular shop – also offered with free returns. This minimizes the risk for buyers and builds trust.
Ultimately, the fact that young consumers in particular are enthusiastic about the reuse offer holds further potential. “Up until now, we have largely assumed our classic customers and now we know that they are much younger when it comes to re-use,” explains Stolzenberger. In this way, he reaches a new target group that he can build up. At the same time, he has to convince the previous target group to want to sell the used products again, so that a worthwhile and sustainable cycle would come about.
FashionUnited attended the event in Berlin at the invitation of Bergzeit and Reverse.Supply.