How Startup The NOLD Uses AI & Sustainability To Drive Gen Z Resale

‘Circularity will save us’, goes the marketing language of many a sustainability campaign, setting aside the decades between now and when fashion products will be recyclable at scale. But 'circularity' (somewhat confusingly) is also used to describe the reuse or extended use of goods beyond their first purchase. Central to this type of circularity for fashion are resale websites, including eBay, Vinted, and Vestiaire Collective, that enable shoppers to resell their clothes, bags, shoes, and jewelry, spending the recouped funds elsewhere (possibly on brand-new fashion, but that's another story).

Many of today's leading fashion resale sites were established over 15 years ago, with the likes of Vinted (established 2008), Vestiaire Collective and ThredUP (both since 2009), and The RealReal (since 2011) all achieving significant market growth and billion-dollar valuations, making them 'unicorns.' But today's resale market is ripe for new propositions. A report published by GlobalData estimated the apparel resale market size as $193.7 billion in 2023, projecting compound annual growth (CAGR) of more than 12% from 2023-2027 (equating to $350M sales in 2028). This resale growth rate outstrips that of luxury goods, with sales of around $354.8 billion in 2023, and projected to grow at 3.4% (CAGR) to $418.9 billion in 2028. It’s no wonder brands are starting to partner with major resale sites to get some skin in the resale game.

With promising resale market growth, a new kid on the block was established in 2023—Bulgaria-based startup, The NOLD. Formerly a personal website she created to sell her old clothes, The NOLD’s CEO, Boryana Uzunova, expanded her proposition when others wanted to sell their clothes on her site, too. A couple of incarnations and a funding round later, the startup now has a million Euros and two more co-founders alongside Uzunova: Ana Kremenlieva, who handles products, operations, logistics, and authentication; and Teodor Savov, a software developer building the platform’s products based on Ana's market and client-derived insights. Savov, a successful developer from Bulgaria with previous tech startup exits, joined The NOLD last year and found himself "working with entirely female leadership for the first time". "There is much less ego involved, and it is not only easier, it reflects better on me [and the] work," he says of the switch. But what does this trio of leaders and their startup offer that incumbent resale platforms do not?

Uzunova aims to build a new business model for resale that "makes circularity the first choice" she says, where shoppers buy 'second-hand' before considering buying 'new'. In her analysis of the existing resale platforms, the CEO saw an opportunity to service brands better from the outset, integrating them into the platform through data partnerships. These partnerships offer enhanced connection between brands and sellers and link sellers' wallets to the partner brands' retail and online stores. "Compared to us, our [incumbent] competitors were built [over] 10 years ago, at a time when the market was different and not growing so quickly. [Those platforms] were conceived with a different purpose" she says, pointing to resale back then as an entirely separate business from the sale of new goods, and one that brands were concerned could devalue their reputation and 'new' products sales.

Today, it's a different story, says Uzunova. Brands are more digitally driven and "have all the online content for [product] descriptions and images, so we thought about the value we could add.” This led to the platform’s data partnership product and integration of brands' product data seamlessly into The NOLD's AI listing feature. Listings can also be populated from image-based online searches, to pull product information from internet sites with the same or similar product. A focal aspect of the startup’s model is that when brands partner and agree to share their product catalog, sellers can list items in a semi-automated way, with the correct design, material and style data (pulled from the brand's systems). This improves the customer experience and enables valuable data sharing both ways.

The NOLD has just begun offering data to brands to help them better understand the products that are reselling on the platform and the resale trends in communities of sellers in given markets. Uzunova hopes this will eventually influence brands' production styles and volumes according to local market information, reducing overproduction and identifying more popular and high-value products. To this end, the reseller's brand partnership product "is being built to provide yearly data to brands on the volume and type of their goods that are resold on The NOLD," explained co-founder Kremenlieva.

On the sustainability front, proof that the growth of the resale market equates to a decline in the volume of new products sold is lacking. However, a study by Trove and Worldly in 2023 outlined circular strategies to help fashion brands grow while reducing carbon emissions. It concluded that "resale is a meaningful decarbonization strategy for Premium Apparel and Outdoor Brands [and] by 2040, resale initiatives have the potential to lower annual carbon emissions for these brands by 15-16%." Based on this study, rather than addressing sustainability at an industry level, resale offers impact reduction in a minority market segment (as opposed to the larger volume sportswear and 'affordable fashion' segment—often binarily labeled 'fast-fashion'.

With the well-established track record of resale platforms and clear growth opportunities in the market, brands have begun to realize that if they don’t want to profit from reselling their products, resale platforms certainly will. A recent article in Harvard Business Review outlined the particular opportunity for resale by tapping Gen Z audiences, but it warned: "To appeal to Gen Z, you need to make it clear that your resale program aligns with their values—notably, their commitment to sustainability". The article also identifies that luxury brands can acquire new, younger customers (who tend to have lower disposable income) via resale sites, sewing the seeds of brand loyalty and the eventual purchases of 'new' products down the line. This opportunity is also used as a selling point by The NOLD's startup competitors, including Continue (a resale platform offering store credit payout from resold items, helping keep shoppers spending 'in brand').

The NOLD's platform seems well aligned with Gen Z audiences by offering a fresher approach to editorial-style imagery and community-focused language. The platform hosts in-person community events, brand-specific and ‘curated’ resale campaigns, sometimes fronted by influencers with eco-leanings. One example is Model, Podcaster and ‘Slow Living’ Advocate, Danielle Copperman Sersoub, who was recently married in a wedding dress made from deadstock (left-over) fabrics. But far from giving-off a DIY or ‘upcycled’ vibe, the bespoke dress (created by Savannah Miller Bridal) earned Copperman-Sersoub a photoshoot and feature in British Vogue.

The resale startup has also assembled an impressive advisory board to help steer them on their journey, including Maylist Buonomo (Former Head of sustainability at Chloe), Alexis Maule, (MD of Reformation for UK and Europe) and former Director of Sustainability at Versace, Jimmy Choo and Swarovski, Dax Lovegrove. Also on the board is Léon Evers, Director of Global Brand Operations at Tommy Hilfiger, who was approached by Uzunova through Social Media and immediately impressed by her "diligent and highly curious" demeanour. Evers joined the advisory board to help the team answer these questions: "How do you go about forging partnerships with a brand [and] where is the win-win? What's a [brand] priority today?"

The NOLD has some key advantages, Evers says. "One great thing they have is timing. There have been multiple cohorts [that started around] 10 years ago, and everyone got excited [but] only a few survived. Some became really big", alluding to the trajectory of The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and the like. "I think that happened when there was a lot of exploration [of what the tech should be, but] super low consumer adoption". "When you start today, you take on all those learnings." He adds, "brands are still experimenting with what role they can play and how [to] immerse themselves in the resale ecosystem, so if you can pull together a team and have a clear [plan for how] your own company plays into that ecosystem, then I think you have a shot". Furthermore, he points out that The NOLD "has a strong base in Bulgaria" which offers a pool of talented, but affordable, tech developers.

In establishing its place in the resale ecosystem, The NOLD has developed differentiated services and products on top of the aforementioned brand-integrated product listing and data reports. Whenever a brand chooses to partner with The NOLD (one example being Reformation), this allows sellers of their products to retain 100% of the sale value to spend in the brand's stores. When the seller elects to spend the money elsewhere (with another retail partner of The NOLD, on any other purchase or a withdrawal) the seller receives just 90% of the item's sale price. Here, The NOLD is attempting to bridge resale and 'new' retail for brands, incentivising them to be partners of the platform, and sellers to 'keep' their money circulating within the same brand, so to speak.

This arrangement allows The NOLD to be 'commission free' for sellers. It also enables resale to fund buying 'brand new'. This arrangement makes it challenging to extrapolate the business model's net environmental sustainability benefits. However, Uzunova says "In the longer term, we [hope to] see brands change the way they want to produce, making fewer items with a longer lifespan", at least in part due to resale data from The NOLD. Presumably, the tipping point for that moment would be reached when it’s more profitable for brands NOT to make a new product and instead generate ‘new’ revenue from an existing one–something akin to auction houses like Christie’s, which is known to sometimes resell the same artworks and luxury goods multiple times, amassing revenue of around $6.2 billion (in 2023) in the process.

Such a future appears to be a long way off for fashion, though (despite resale site 1st dibs deftly tapping the rare and unique fashion resale market already). By comparison, The NOLD is selling far more readily available products, but with the introduction of curation and ‘one-off’ samples. Ultimately, the resale circularity aim and limitations remain the same—the value of ‘the old’ needs to be higher (in perception and currency) than ‘the new’, to make second-hand the first choice.