You can now聽buy a lot more used jackets, midlayers, and lifestyle clothing聽from REI. Last Wednesday, the retailer聽announced that its program, which launched in beta last year, is here to stay鈥攁nd it鈥檚 going to get bigger. 聽
Used Gear began in October 2017 as an online extension of REI鈥檚 popular Garage Sale events, where customers could buy discounted聽gear that鈥檚 been returned to REI stores. The best-quality returns鈥攖he ones that just require聽cleaning, not repair鈥攁re set aside and sent to a distribution warehouse, where they get聽cleaned, cataloged, and put online for sale, also at a steep discount. A range of gear, from Marmot ski pants and Outdoor Research puffy coats to Burton mittens and Patagonia fleeces, is offered for an average of 60 percent off.
The promise of cheaper high-quality gear drew more customers than REI anticipated. Peter Whitcomb, REI鈥檚 director of strategy and lead on the Used Gear project, says that the brand surpassed its sales benchmark. But there were some kinks to work out. For example, the original beta site had no search function; customers had to scroll through the entire product offering to find what they were looking for.
鈥淲e were conceptually committed to the program,鈥 says Whitcomb. 鈥淏ut we wanted to figure out the right way to do it.鈥 REI used the last ten months to fine tune the customer experience and smooth out the back-end operational details for moving product from stores to a central distribution center and getting it online. The company added that search function so customers can filter product just like they can on the normal REI site,聽and it gradually brought more brands on board, to expand the product offerings. (REI needs to get permission from each of its partner brands before selling their used product again online.)聽That growth is going to continue, too. Whitcomb says REI is looking to scale up the Used Gear business by encouraging even more of the brands it sells to join.
This all underscores the popularity of and demand for used gear, which has increased over the last few years as consumers have become more conscious of what happens to the stuff they throw out. And brands are taking that seriously: In the past ten months alone, both Patagonia聽and the North Face launched their own聽online used gear platforms as well鈥攇iving the people what they want.