The new “Gently” branding is brilliant, and the experience is much improved over earlier iterations, so I think they have a shot to carve out a nice niche for themselves. However they will likely remain a niche player unless they find a way to integrate bigger brands’ resale selections into their platform. And I think that is a pretty big ask. Major brands are investing in resale to, in part at least, protect their brand image and combat the knockoff industry. I just don’t see them opening up their brand to aggregators anytime soon, which I do think will be a built-in inhibitor to real meaningful growth for aggregators like Gently.

Unlike new apparel, used clothing sellers don’t suffer the same level of competition since most items are essentially one-offs, without a range of sizes or colors. Reaching a broader audience is essential for resellers, not just for making sales but also for enticing trade-ins to keep the stocking cycle healthy. Shopping aggregators offer a big benefit to the resale market to increase shopper traffic and elevate the quality of the shopping experience. For the resale market specifically, a rising tide lifts all boats.

There has been a lot of movement in the gently used clothing arena. I see this continuing to grow as a viable alternative to buying new apparel.

Given the proliferation of secondhand and resale sites, having an aggregator makes searching a lot easier. Plus Gently has some good features, like daily alerts for new products. The only downside is that Gently does not search every site so there are some, such as retailers’ own secondhand selections – a growing part of the market, which are missed.

Aggregators are a good business model in highly fragmented industries, providing a single point of access for the audience. They provide larger audiences than each individual site would have on their own, while reducing the total cost of marketing to each. Their success however is highly dependent on their own marketing initiatives and their monetization model. Secondhand is a big, and growing, market that would benefit from a successful aggregator consolidating the many players in the space. As with Kayak, other aggregators will pop up, willing to go head-to-head to capture mindshare in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

I love the idea of Gently, I’m just wondering if consumer behaviors will adapt to this type of a resource. It seems right now shoppers already have their go-to sites for secondhand and, if they enjoy the hunting process, this tool may take away some of the fun for them.

Secondhand shopping has grown in popularity, especially as the economy has declined. And anything that aggregates these purchases is a plus. Goodwill has recently entered this space with a multi-division collection that has the potential to vastly expand these offerings. This is a space that will continue to expand. Gently can expect a lot more meta-search competitors, but being first in always has its advantages.

Gently’s timing could not be better with more value-conscious consumers looking to save money while reducing their environmental impact. The concept of secondhand apparel aggregators is attractive; however Gently is very early in its journey and will require significantly more funding to market and scale its operation and expand its reach.

If not Gently, then someone else will fill that void. Secondhand shopping is at a tipping point, about to get very mainstream. Secondhand is now cool, and buying secondhand is part of the younger generations’ core values. The big miss here is — where’s Poshmark?

I love this. Aggregating these sites and providing search capabilities will supercharge this market. Nicely done!

Gently has identified a present-day problem and has come up with a specific solution to counter it. For customers, searching and buying secondhand products of choice will become effortless!

I believe aggregators like Gently and Kayak adds value to customers’ lives and help them explore the buying experience.