Founded in 2015, Goodbyes is Australia’s largest brick-and-mortar resale service, offering a hybrid consignment model and curated in-store shopping experience. Here, we speak with co-founder Olivia Magnan about the growth of the secondhand market, how technology can simplify the sector’s complex logistics and her plans for Goodbyes in the year ahead. Inside Retail: What are your expectations for the year ahead?
Olivia Mangan: The landscape of fashion in Australia and globally is witness
is witnessing a remarkable shift, as secondhand is getting widespread acceptance. Throughout the last eight years in business, we’ve experienced this surge in customer demand. I think the surge in secondhand [shopping] is making strides in competing with traditional fashion retail, which is what we’re all about, trying to encourage people to shop secondhand over new.
For us, that means more competition, as we’ve seen over the last eight years, but that actually is proving beneficial for us. The industry growth is helping to dismantle a stigma that we once faced when we first started the business. It’s an exciting time to be in the secondhand business.
IR: To what do you attribute the surge in popularity for consignment and secondhand goods?
OM: There are a few factors. I think the first one is value. Then there’s individualism, expressing your individuality, and then the last one is impact. Arguably, value might be the largest motivator behind secondhand purchases, because when you’re shopping secondhand, you’re able to purchase a piece for a fraction of the original retail price. The other one is individualism, especially with social media and our exposure to relentless trends – global trends, micro-trends – and relentless targeted marketing from brands. I see our customers shopping with us as a way to express their uniqueness and experiment with their own sense of style beyond the influence of social media. And then of course, impact. Choosing to shop secondhand is just such an effective way to alleviate the industry’s terrible impacts on the environment.
IR: Are there any major projects or initiatives in the works?
OM: We’ve currently got six stores. But even with six, we’re proud to be the largest secondhand brick-and-mortar retail service in Australia, and our plans are to achieve broad nationwide expansion in the next couple of years. What that means is a Goodbyes in every major city by the end of 2025, and then we’ll continue with our roadmap.
We’re getting demand from people who are requesting that we open up across Australia, so that’s really motivating and giving me energy to continue expanding.
IR: What are your top priorities for the business in 2024?
OM: There are a couple of other things. Technology investment is something we’ve been working towards for a while, and we’re going to move forward on that project in 2024. Contrary to what a lot of other retailers are doing, it deliberately excludes venturing into e-commerce. Instead, we’ve got a strategic plan to innovate our resale service offering, leveraging our technology and data to optimize our staff training and elevate the overall seller experience, so when you bring your pieces in, it’s a much more convenient, joyful experience.
There will be some significant investment behind the scenes, streamlining the processes. The intricacies of running a large-scale consignment business involve meticulous administration and logistics because we’re dealing with thousands of SKUs each week on behalf of thousands of individual sellers. We’re facing complex operational challenges, and technology is something that we’ve always identified is going to help us streamline those processes to give us more free time to focus on the expansion of the business and take advantage of this momentous opportunity in the industry.
The other thing that we’re focusing on is content creation. Our marketing budgets have been very small, and we’ve been very lucky word of mouth has served us well. We’ve just introduced this new role – head of content. We have a team of 80 now, and our staff are very creative. While they work for us, they’re also working like they’re working in fashion, film, music, poetry and mindfulness and they’ve got retail businesses. From the outset, we’ve tried to champion our staff and that extends to our community of shoppers and sellers. They’re also ambitious, high-achieving creators, so this year, we’re going to invest a lot more in collaborations with them.
IR: Are there any potential challenges on your radar for Goodbyes in 2024?
OM: In terms of opening stores, yes, it’s our most significant challenge. This year and going forward has been [about] securing retail properties, so the right leases and the right spaces. We require reasonably large locations on busy main roads, which limits our options for these spaces, and we’re competing with quite large retailers, like pharmacies. For example, we missed out on the ideal flagship store in Sydney. It was a funny situation where we didn’t really get a chance to negotiate – there’s a lack of opportunity for that. It’s a very covert industry, there’s not a lot of transparency. There are these very nuanced, strategic interactions with property agents – you don’t often get to speak to the landlord directly. We’ve been doing this for eight years, but it’s our biggest challenge because we are bricks-and-mortar and it’s so important where we land these stores. We have so much demand for Sydney, but we’ve got to get the location right.
IR: Looking back on 2023, what were some of the biggest obstacles you faced?
OM: Authenticity is important to us. We do our very best to authenticate things and if we can’t authenticate them, we don’t sell them. We need proof of purchase, or we do thorough research or have conversations with the sellers to find out more. You see big online players in America, or small, high-end ones here, focusing on design authentication, but we offer a wide variety of products, so we don’t have to focus on the high-end as much. I think that it’s impossible to truly authenticate an item unless you are from the fashion house itself. I don’t think you can give a guaranteed authentication unless you have that proof of purchase from the original purchase, so it’s an ongoing challenge, but we continue to do our best and we always make sure that if anything is deemed counterfeit, we return it to the supplier or give the customer a refund.
IR: Circular fashion is at the center of your business. Do you have any advice for brands on how they can better contribute to a circular economy?
OM: At the core of the issue with the fashion industry and its severe impact on the environment, is what we’re producing and how we’re doing it. I think production does need to slow down and be more considered, but we’re trying to position ourselves as a compelling alternative to shopping new.
If people can make more considered purchases, buying quality and buying things that they think they’re going to wear again and again – that’s the first thing you’ve got to do. Alternatively, shopping secondhand is arguably the most effective way to reduce, as a consumer, your impact and the impact that the fashion industry has on the environment.