Twice Is Making Selling Clothes Online Easier Than Ever

Already running a successful womenswear marketplace, Twice has just introduced menswear to its site.

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Complex Original

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Guys, consignment clothing shopping as you know it has just changed forever. Twice, which is becoming known as one of the best places on the web to snag great deals on secondhand women’s clothing, just launched its men’s division. If you’ve ever been reluctant about selling your clothes online, this startup is hoping to attract first time sellers by making the process as easy as possible with its unique service. The launch of the menswear offerings is something that has been in the works since day one, according to co-founder Noah Ready-Campbell. ​

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"We wanted to do menswear from the very beginning, when we launched in 2012," he tells us via phone call, "but after taking a look at the market, the women's market was just so much bigger that we decided to start there. But menswear was always on our radar."

Twice is the brainchild of Ready-Campbell and Calvin Young, both ex-Google employees with backgrounds in product management and software engineering. And while at first it might seem odd that two tech enthusiasts ended up in the fashion business, it's a perfect fit.

“We both grew up wearing second hand clothes,” says Ready-Campbell. “I went to a boarding school and had to wear a shirt and a tie everyday, and I would buy the clothes that I wore outside of school at Goodwill. I realized there was so many great deals out there: one of my favorite shirts I bought back then was $10, and it still had the tag on it that said $200 regular price.”

Those personal experiences were proof for the value of building a service like Twice, that could keep all the best parts about the resell market, namely the prices and selection, but take away some of the hassle. “We designed it in such a way that it addresses the pain points that we came across in our own lives,” says Ready-Campbell, who says that he has used eBay to sell clothes in the past, but has probably only sold one item in his life. What sets Twice apart from a traditional marketplace like eBay or Grailed.com is the fact that it doesn’t just offer sellers a platform to hawk their goods; it actually does all the heavy lifting. From sprucing up the goods, to photographing them, to shipping it off to buyers, all sellers have to do is provide the clothes. This is a game-changer for those who might have previously been turned off from the resell game due to the time and effort it requires to see items through from listing to sale. "People are sending in an average of 15 items at a time [to Twice]" says Ready-Campbell. "If you think about everything involved in selling those items online, you could be spending the whole day just getting them listed.” 

Here’s how it works: you request a free mailing bag and shipping label to send your items in. Once Twice receives and processes them, they’ll make you an offer. If you accept, you get paid out immediately, without having to wait for your items to sell. Payment comes in the form of Paypal, check, store credit, or even Target gift card. If you don’t accept, you can get your clothes shipped back and just pay a $4.95 shipping fee. While there are various online marketplace options for women, and a few for high-end items, Twice specifically fills a gap in the online menswear resell market: "We are the only ones who do this for men in the mass market upscale category," says Ready-Campbell.

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Its founders' roots in the tech industry are evident, as Twice has done an incredible job of streamlining the overall user experience of its service. The site is clean and easy-to-navigate, and includes a ton of helpful tools that can help search for accepted brands, and even estimate what you might earn for certain items from certain labels. There's also a mobile app available for both iOS and Android.

And if you were wondering about how items are priced, those numbers don’t get pulled out of thin air. Again drawing upon the tech experience of its founders, Twice’s pricing is all done through the power of advanced data science. A few years of operations and over 1 million items processed has translated in valuable data about which items are most popular, how long they take to sell, and the work involved in getting them processed and sold. With all that information, they have been able to develop some advanced algorithms to aid in the pricing process.

Twice launched its menswear offerings with over 5,000 items from 230 brands ranging from J. Crew to Stussy. While one might assume it's sitting on a ton of inventory, Ready-Campbell says the response has been incredible: "In the first day, we sold 1,000 of the items we launched with. Since then, the menswear portion is accounting for 5-10% of total sales."

Ready-Campbell hopes that Twice breaks down some of the barriers surrounding the clothing resale market for guys, especially those who might have been wary because they didn't want to spend the time listing their items, or spend hours poring over search results to find what they want. “Even if you’ve never bought second hand, I encourage you to give it a try," he says. "We have so many great clothes, great photos, and everything organized by size or style. There’s some amazing deals to be had, sometimes up to 90% off retail price. How could you say no?”

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