Supercycle

This one has been cooking for a while, so it’s now amazing to finally see Dress for a Night go live with Supercycle. Circular is the future ♻️

Looking forward to this! We'll be in Bristol in a couple weeks to talk ecom sustainability alongside Inventory Planner by Sage and KOSTÜME. Grab a free ticket below 👇

Rent the Runway is having its lunch eaten by Urban Outfitters' Nuuly. Q3 '23 Results: -RTR $21.9M operating LOSS -Nuuly $300k operating PROFIT -RTR 6% revenue drop YoY -Nuuly 86% revenue increase YoY -RTR 132k active subs (down 2% YoY) -Nuuly 198k active subs (up 68% YoY) Why? Rent the Runway has three MAJOR cost centres to its business: 1/ Fairly high acquisition costs I still think RTR is in the process of creating demand, persuading consumers, and driving up GMV. This is proving costly. 2/ Very high R&D costs RTR is building and maintaining a lot of proprietary tech to service its business model as well as investing a lot into their ecommerce experience. This means they basically have the tech costs of a tech business. Case in point: $12M R&D spend in Q3 '23 alone (~18% of revenue) 🤯 3/ Thin margins RTR isn't a fashion brand in itself. Inventory comes mainly via purchasing stock from other brands at a wholesale rate. This leaves them with the R&D costs of a tech business mentioned above, but with the margins of a retail business. Now, let's contrast this to Nuuly: ✅ Lower acquisition costs Urban Outfitters already has a huge audience across its other brands that can be redirected and help drive down the cost of acquisition. 😕 Still relatively high R&D costs Urban has reportedly stumped up around $100M up front. ✅ Much better margins Nuuly doesn't need to source stock via wholesale from other brands. They ARE the brand (or, at least Urban is). Plus, stock can also often be sourced from cost centres in the other brands. E.g. returns at Urban can then become ready-to-use stock on Nuuly. This means MUCH healthier margins. The lesson here for other rental merchants? You HAVE to find a competitive advantage in AT LEAST one, but ideally two or all three of those cost centres: CAC, R&D, and margins. This will give you an excellent foundation for growth and the best chance of succeeding. #ecommerce #rentalcommerce #circulareconomy #sustainability

📣 Pleased to announce I'll be speaking at Real Circularity Summit this year! I'll be talking all about rental, why I think it's going to be a leading force in the circularity movement, and how brands can use it to balance sustainability and profitability. Get yourself signed up if you want to learn more! 🌐 Where: Virtual/online 🗓️ When: June 21, 2024 Register here: https://lnkd.in/dRvdk6Y7 Thanks for having me Rachel Sheila Kan 😊

We're never going to see meaningful change on sustainability until it makes ECONOMIC sense to do so. Yes, I see the damage many businesses are causing the planet. The overproduction. The waste. The excess. I want it to change. But the reality is... Businesses need to make money. They should be allowed to innovate, and solve problems, and get rewarded financially for being successful. It's just that, traditionally, sustainable practices = smaller profits. To be more sustainable, you have to produce less stuff. But for economic growth, you have produce more stuff in order to sell more stuff 😖 The solution? A model where the incentive for BOTH environmental sustainability and economic growth is the same. I believe rental and usage-based models is one of the best ways to do this. And exactly why we founded Supercycle. With rental: 1️⃣ Consumers only pay for what they use before sending it back to be used again by someone else. 2️⃣ Businesses are incentivized to manufacture better quality products in smaller quantities, that last longer, and generate repeat revenue over time. Meaning businesses make more money, without creating more and more waste that ends up in landfill and destroys our planet. A true meeting of sustainability with profitability 🤝 What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments how you think we can make sustainability work long-term. #ecommerce #sustainability #circulareconomy

Had a great chat yesterday with Ryan and Arthur - love what they are building with Supercycle; already feels like the best fashion rental offering on the market for Shopify merchants. Lots of shared pain (and a hack or two) around Shopify's Purchase Option / Subscription APIs 😊.

Worried that adding rental to your ecommerce store will hurt conversion rate? Here’s a different way to think about it 👇

So happy to see another brand go live with Supercycle!

Rental can drive BOTH sustainability benefits and bottom-line business value. You just have to give it a chance by starting the flywheel 💡

📣 Over the last few months, we’ve been hard at work building the NEW JoyLet Membership. And today, we’re putting our little membership baby out into the world for everyone to see. We built this for busy parents who are ready to lighten their mental loads by letting JoyLet take baby & kid stuff off their already full plates. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gBiGz8HM Huge THANK YOU to all who have given us your time for customer discovery and product testing interviews and provided your expert feedback. You are seriously the best! And shout out to Supercycle for helping give our UX a premium "Rent the Runway" feel on a startup budget. Friends, we have one more ask for you - Please help us spread the word!   📱 Share our membership with expecting parents or young families you know in the DMV and Baltimore areas. 🎁 Better yet, GIFT them a month membership! We're running a limited time offer for 20% off memberships and membership gift cards with code EARLY ACCESS. See gift card options here: https://lnkd.in/gb5Yvn8j #startup #femalefounder #famtech #parenting Andrew Hippert Elliott Mack Jordan F.