Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) Aaron Provine, the president and owner of Geartrade, returns to discuss the evolving landscape of secondhand gear and recommerce in the outdoor industry.
Aaron highlights the growing momentum toward secondhand products and picks a fight with Colin's criticism of brand recommerce platforms as he believes that these brand initiatives are giving consumers more reasons than ever to put secondhand first.
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Episode Transcript
Colin True
00:00:00.520 - 00:02:16.859
Hey you outdoor retailers, listen up. You're sick of it, aren't you?
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Get in touch by sending an email to infoonwalpine.com to set up a line showing today Northwest Alpine made here for all the right reasons. Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree.
This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin Trew and today on the show the president and owner of Geertrade, Aaron Provine returns to give us a Geertrade secondhand update.
But also let me know why I have the brand recommerce thing wrong.
But first, please follow and rate the Rock Fight wherever you are listening following the Rock Fight on your favorite podcast app and giving us that five star rating. And hey, if it's Apple podcasts, a written review is the single best way. To help out the show.
Thank you for doing that. And also if you haven't, you need to sign up for News from the Front, which is Rock Fight's newsletter.
There is stuff that we put in that newsletter that you can't get anywhere else. So head to rockflight co click join the mailing list and then this Sunday you can enjoy News from the Front. And that's it. Let's start the show.
Chris DeMakes
00:02:16.947 - 00:02:21.015
Welcome to the Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Colin True
00:02:22.115 - 00:03:22.235
With all the secondhand chatter coming out. Of the Rock Fight over the past.
Couple of months, it was really only a matter of time before I'd hear from Aaron Provine, the owner and president of geertrade.
Aaron is a returning champion, having come on the Rock Fight last summer and when I recently threw some criticisms at flylo's new ecommerce platform where consumers can send in their old ski bibs to flylo for a credit towards new product. And that's also the program that was developed in conjunction with geertrade. Well, he shot me an email telling me why I got it wrong.
So I did the only thing I could do. I asked him to come back on the Rock Fight so we could talk about it. And that's today's show.
Aron is back and offers his viewpoint on what is happening in the secondhand world, how geartrade is evolving, and why we should be optimistic about all of these brands that are creating their own recommerce platforms. Welcome back to the Rock Flight, where today it's a return fire episode with Gear Trade's Aaron Provine.
All right. For the first time in over a year, the owner and president of Gear Trade, Aaron Provine is back on the Rock Flight. Welcome back, man. How you doing?
Aaron Provine
00:03:22.615 - 00:03:31.737
Good, good. Thanks for having me. It's good to be back. Resale has been a big topic for you, so I'm glad that I can come on here and have a voice.
Colin True
00:03:31.881 - 00:03:59.765
Yeah, I, and I'm glad you're here to help keep that conversation going because it's a very important one.
I will say before we start though, the last time you were here we were talking about how Sean Payton and Russell Wilson were going to go 13 and four together and they're so excited about the future of, of the Broncos.
But now the Bo Nicks era has arrived, so you've got to be, it's got to be a little bit of a solve, like a little bit of a balm after, you know, a couple of years at Russell Wilson.
Aaron Provine
00:04:00.425 - 00:04:18.913
Yeah, I mean the last seven years of being a Broncos fan has been tough. There's optimism, which is good. The Broncos are no longer a bottom dwelling team and it is instead an average team which is better than a.
Colin True
00:04:18.929 - 00:04:22.113
Bottom dwelling 5 and 2 right now as we record this in November.
Aaron Provine
00:04:22.169 - 00:04:28.287
Yeah, I mean they're in the last playoff spot right now, but we play the Chiefs this weekend, which, whatever, you know, I can't.
Colin True
00:04:28.391 - 00:04:40.239
Well, the Kansas City, you know, horseshoe.
Up my ass team who won last night as we record this again. This is going to about next week, I think but against Tampa Bay, like just how many weird wins can Kansas. City come up with? Jesus.
Aaron Provine
00:04:40.407 - 00:05:00.743
Right? Patriots 2.0. Yeah, whatever. So, yeah, I don't know. There's, there's promise. I like what Bone X is doing.
I like where they're headed, but they're not a contender. Maybe they'll be a contender in two or three years, but it's the right path.
Colin True
00:05:00.839 - 00:05:23.115
Well, also the last time you're on the show, I think we stayed pretty high level with kind of the role of secondhand that it can play in the kind of the grand scheme of thing in the outdoor industry. That the outdoor industry should be making less, I guess just to kind of, you know, level set. Since it's been a minute, you know. What'S, what's going on with Gear trade?
What's happening with Second hand from your lens? There's been, like you said, there's been a lot in the news. We've been talking about it a lot on this show.
You know what's happening at gear trade in November 2024.
Aaron Provine
00:05:23.535 - 00:07:52.925
Yeah. So, you know, we've had a lot of, a lot of changes. We've evolved a lot. Last time that we talked, you know, our model was multifaceted.
We were a peer to peer marketplace. We were a consignment. We had a consignment business model. I believe we had just launched our trade in program with DPS skis. Right.
We have eliminated our peer to peer marketplace. So that went away in May. I don't functionally believe that peer to peer can work in a niche market like outdoor. So we have evolved away from that.
There's a lot of dynamics that I think are challenging with peer to peer and especially digitally.
It's a model where I think that you have to be everything to everybody and you can't give the focus that a market like outdoor needs, I think to provide the experience that the customer desires. So we moved away from our peer to peer model back in May. We are solely focused really on creating a great customer experience for our customers.
Our consignment model continues to be a success. We continue to process a lot of inventory, sell a lot of inventory. We launched new trade in programs with Jones Snowboards and flylo.
Both of those programs are really unique in terms of how they approach resale. We can get into that, more of that later. But that continues to kind of be a big focus of ours in terms of evolving our business model.
And at the end of the day, we're a family owned and operated business and so we don't have any visas, backing any VC funding.
So everything that we do is deliberate and everything that we introduce is really designed around the customer experience and really trying to give the customer everything that they need. It's not grow at all costs. Every partner that we work with, we're pretty tight with them. We design custom designed solutions for them.
And really our sole focus and purpose is to really create something that works for you used gear in the outdoor industry. And that's all of our investment for the past two years. That's where all of it has gone to, is really trying to create that experience.
Colin True
00:07:53.825 - 00:08:23.625
So on the kind of just secondhand side in general or the resale side in general, it does feel kind of like we talked about a lot in the news. It's been a very hot topic around here as we react to things that are in the news.
So anecdotally anyway, it does seem like there's been more of a push towards you stuff. Whereas maybe the last time you and I spoke it felt maybe more like you're trying to kind of pull the industry towards like what you guys were doing. Are you feeling that momentum? I mean, am I just reading too many, you know, outdoor brand recommerce, you know, stories and the aggregators?
Aaron Provine
00:08:24.045 - 00:09:50.499
I think a little bit of both. There's definitely momentum. Market's evolving rapidly, right? Continues to grow and expand. New customers continue to enter the market.
The adoption of buying and selling has increased. Right. Consumers are looking at when they buy a product, whether or not they can resell that product.
The resale value of that product is becoming important. Consumers are looking at their closet, their gear room as an opportunity for them to make money, as an opportunity for them to recover cost.
That is all happening. That dynamic is speeding up and it's benefiting used gear. But there's also a massive focus on creating profitable business models.
Whereas a couple years ago, resale was really grow at all costs. There was a lot of new entrants, there were lot of new service providers.
That's slowed down a little bit, you know, and it's, you know, it's kind of been a little bit of some refocus, you know, and it's, and it's evolved really how the customer, you know, interacts with the number of players in the market. You know, obviously on the brand side there's been a lot of trade in programs launched.
To your point, seemingly it's like day out day, you know, every single day somebody launches whatchamacallit. Right.
Colin True
00:09:50.587 - 00:09:52.055
Recolon something.
Aaron Provine
00:09:52.635 - 00:10:25.515
Yeah, you know, some sort of a new resale, resale program, in my opinion. I think that those are great. The more we talk about the, about used gear, the more it's going to get into the consumer's lexicon.
The more the consumer is going to participate in that model, the more we can get people to participate in that model, the more we're going to get this model to grow. We're going. More we're going to get sustainability to be kind of a thought that consumers really believe in.
Colin True
00:10:25.895 - 00:11:34.001
Yeah, I think the interesting thing, aside from even the stuff just reading in the outdoor news trades, but the.
Yeah, well, even one that came out of that was, you know, the black diamond relationship with Wilderness Exchange in Denver, which is also either they do a lot of secondhand there. And then I was in Missoula, Montana a few weeks ago and got to do a tour of the Trailhouse, which is a great little shop in downtown Missoula.
And the owner, Todd Franklin, sort of walked us through their entire second hand how they do their consignment secondhand program.
And just the level of thought that went into it to make sure it wasn't just like they're bringing in a bunch of stuff and it sits there and collects dust until it sells, like the way, the way they're kind of going about it.
And so seeing that level of commitment even from like an independent specialty retailer was really encouraging and like super because you got to have this. I mean, I think Don Bush even said it.
He's like, occasionally you get that kind of weird sort of dingleberry piece of gear that just hangs out on your shelf for like 10 years as there's no home for it or it's an odd size or whatever. But seeing then other folks who are kind of managing that, how to figure. Out a way to set it up.
So that it can be profitable and meaningful all the way down to the specialty level to, from like what you guys do has been really encouraging. So as, as, as a whole, it seems like there's a lot of positivity coming out of the category.
Aaron Provine
00:11:34.153 - 00:12:05.891
Yeah, there's. There's a ton of positivity coming out of the category. There's a lot of momentum within, within the category.
You know, to your point, you know, there's, there's a lot of brick and mortar stores that I think are doing really, really well. Right? Yeah, I would actually say brick and mortar is the pioneer here. They've been doing this for a long time. I think we do a disservice.
I think the industry does a disservice to a lot of the brick and mortar stores that have been doing this for 20, 30, 40 years, you know, because of these new digital mediums that have popped up.
Colin True
00:12:05.923 - 00:12:06.547
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:12:06.731 - 00:12:13.963
Resale, consignment, buybacks. This isn't a new thing. This is something that's been happening for a long time.
Colin True
00:12:14.099 - 00:12:16.223
I started my career at Play It Again sports.
Aaron Provine
00:12:16.419 - 00:12:17.575
Right. Yeah.
Colin True
00:12:17.615 - 00:12:21.475
I mean, that was in 1995. They had been around for like 10 years at that point.
Aaron Provine
00:12:21.775 - 00:12:31.143
Yeah, I mean, exactly. So, like, resale isn't anything new. I think how we talk about resale and I think how we apply resale has evolved.
Colin True
00:12:31.279 - 00:12:31.911
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:12:32.063 - 00:13:05.115
And to your point, I think, you know, I think it came up on one of your podcasts earlier.
You know, you know, the challenge with resale and the difference between resale and say, like new is that it's really difficult to gain economies of scale. Every single item is a unique item. It's quality of one, product of one, uniqueness of one. Every single item has to be touched, has to be identified.
It has to be thoroughly looked over. You know, and then you have to go through all of the other aspects. You have to take a photo of it.
Colin True
00:13:05.155 - 00:13:05.379
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:13:05.427 - 00:13:45.647
So it's like, I can't go buy 10,000 black down jackets. Every single item is a uniqueness of one. Right.
So rather than your costs on having that product come in be fractions of a penny, there's a very real cost to it, which can be challenging. And that can be challenging to creating an assortment.
And beyond that, you have to have enough holding capacity to be able to hold all of this stuff that's coming in, which really creates a challenge around assortment. How do you create the right assortment? And so, yeah, there are some dynamics here that are very challenging.
Colin True
00:13:45.791 - 00:14:27.035
Yeah, yeah. The one you mentioned earlier. So we talked.
You talked about your relationship with Philo and Jones, and we definitely want to talk about Jones a little bit, but focusing on Fly Low.
So like we talked about, you know, the brand recommerce and upcycling has been, I mean, those stories are like you said, been kind of like on a heater lately. Right. So, you know, in Gear Chase, you were in the news as you partnered with flylo to manage.
I guess it's the back end of their e commerce program, if that's fair to say. So consumers can send their used Fly Low apparel back and receive a discount on new products. I guess just a level set.
Like how did that program come together? You know, Fly Low, pretty small. Not small. That's a niche. Let's say ski brand, right.
Been around for, they're probably been around for at least, at least 10 plus years at this point as well. So how did the program come together and how does it work?
Aaron Provine
00:14:27.975 - 00:14:38.501
Yeah, so I mean, this is a conversation that started, you know, really after we launched our DPS trade in programming. And we look for brands that are core and authentic.
Colin True
00:14:38.613 - 00:14:38.957
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:14:39.021 - 00:15:01.675
And Flylo certainly fits that bill. They're core, they're authentic, they make great product. They don't have an oversized line. Right. It's not 10,000 items, it's well merchandised.
And every single price, every single product, every single piece has a distinct point of view.
Colin True
00:15:01.805 - 00:15:02.143
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:15:02.199 - 00:16:18.135
And so they have a natural fit with what we're doing because we're very deliberate about working with brands and organizations that have a real good kind of thought process about how they think about their world. So the conversation really kind of came up after we launched our DPS trade in program for them.
They wanted to find a solution that effectively could help them acquire customers in the sense that they wanted to take trade in program from other brands, right? So they wanted to take trade in product from other brands.
So they launched part of, part of the flylo leftover land is that they launched a component where they will take any brand's bib for trade in credit and we will process that.
Gear trade will process that and resell it through gear trade and the customer is able to get credit to use on Fly Low and be able to buy a Fly Low piece. That's something that hasn't really happened in resale.
Most brands, when they enter into the resale space, look at another brand's product as oh, yeah, yeah, don't, don't send me that.
Colin True
00:16:18.295 - 00:16:23.695
Yeah, like, don't send me your I'm smart. Well, don't send me your darn tough socks. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Provine
00:16:23.855 - 00:16:26.895
They don't want it and they don't want anything to do with it.
Colin True
00:16:26.975 - 00:16:27.215
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:16:27.255 - 00:16:35.761
And so, you know, when Dan and his team reached out to us and was like, hey, we'd like to do this. Are you able to do this? I was like 100%.
Colin True
00:16:35.873 - 00:16:36.169
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:16:36.217 - 00:17:04.741
We have this platform where we sell a lot of stuff. As a matter of fact, I mean, we sell 2x more than a branded resale platform is going to sell.
Just because we have that customer, we know who that customer is, we sell to that customer.
So this is a natural opportunity for Fly Low to approach customers that are wearing another brand's product and be able to get them to go convert into a Fly low customer has that.
Colin True
00:17:04.773 - 00:17:12.709
I mean, are you starting to see, are you getting returns? Are people sending things in? Has it been successful so far? I mean, is it matching your expectations? Not quite there yet.
Aaron Provine
00:17:12.877 - 00:17:31.395
It's been successful. We are getting a number of requests, we're getting a number of products. We're in the first month here.
We launched it really more month and a half then. So, you know, it's, it's, it's cranking for the first month and a half.
Colin True
00:17:34.655 - 00:19:43.055
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That's great.
I mean, look, you know, if you go back and listen to the episode, I'm probably sounding way more cynical about it than maybe I had any right to be, but mostly because, and we'll get into it as we get talk of these programs at large is that this usually does feel very box checky for brands. It's like, just like, we'll do this. Bring, send us your stuff.
The fact that, you know, like I said, fly low, not a large brand, that they opened it up to everybody is. That's a real wit. You can't, you know, I can't imagine. I don't know.
I'm sure there are others out there, but if they're openly saying, listen, I don't, we don't care who it is, just send it back. And you can get something from us. It just gives people another place to send things.
I'd rather probably still see them send it to just Gear Trade and sort of a larger marketplace. But hey, listen, everything is a helpful, is helpful at this, this time. I would say though, like the one thing.
Well, actually, let me ask you this first. I mean, were these. So between DPS and Fly Low, was this always in the card for you when you bought Gear Trade?
Is like we want to do more stuff like this or is this just kind of how the secondhand marketplace is evolving, like to do more sort of brand specific, sort of provide different services to brands specifically?
Aaron Provine
00:19:43.475 - 00:20:36.755
Yeah, I mean, I think that it wasn't a part of the cards when I acquired Gear trade back in 2019. It's definitely been a part of the evolution. It's been a part that we've just added on really. Because there's two factors that plays in here.
Number one, we already have all of this technology. Right, right, right. We already built it all. Number two, we look at it very differently than other players in the market. Right.
As we kind of look at, look at the market as a whole, there are marketplaces like us, eBay, Poshmark, et cetera. There are front end providers like a trove, a treat archive and then there's backend.
Colin True
00:20:36.875 - 00:20:37.227
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:20:37.291 - 00:21:31.921
So tersis, Super Circle, etc. Each one, each component kind of has its own thing that it does well.
But at the end of the day, we felt that there was an opportunity for us to step into this market and really do it a little bit differently. What I mean by that is because we already have this technology, we can apply this technology to any brand.
We can get a brand up and running within a couple of weeks. Very low effort on their end. Our development team handles everything. We don't charge for getting everything set up.
And so our point of view is let's get the more brands that we can get involved into the programs, the more people are going to think about resale, the more used gear is going to be sold and the quicker the adoption rate is going to increase.
Colin True
00:21:32.033 - 00:21:32.353
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:21:32.409 - 00:22:17.117
And so we approach it from the sense that anybody can do this. And so we'll make it super easy for you to do it.
In the case of like DPS and Jones, we have tuning machines in our facility and so we refurbish those products.
We put, you know, in the DPS example, they want everything with, you know, with a phantom application on there so that everything gets their phantom treatment.
For Jones, they, you know, they want everything Kind of tuned a specific way so we get everything set up so that the customer that's buying that used board gets basically a refurbished product.
Colin True
00:22:17.261 - 00:22:17.973
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:22:18.149 - 00:24:16.981
In the Jones example specifically, they also run a program called Reup, which is a part of the resale program where they will take any brand's snowboard. So if you have a Burton board, a Lib Tech board, right.
They'll take those boards when they're dead, when they're no longer usable, send it to us, and we will help Jones recycle that product. And they take those boards and they remake them into new boards. So there's, there's a full circularity component and we help them.
We are, we're the main collection point for that program.
We hold all of those, all of those boards until we have enough to ship it off to the manufacturer to get those boards remade into something, something new. So each example that we've built is really kind of an outside the box, not really copy and paste model that we've been able to create.
And it's because of our unique model that we have that we're able to do that.
And even going into the flylo example, Flylo is looking at their resale model fairly uniquely in the sense that they're not looking to profit off of anything that they make that's extra. They're, they're donating to pow.
You know, so all three brands that we work with are very unique in the sense that they believe in this, this is a part of their ethos, right? I mean, Jeremy Jones and John Snowboards, right. I mean, everybody knows kind of the sustainability story there.
You know, Dan Abrams and flylo, you know, he does a lot of work on trying to create a sustainable brand with flylo. Right. You know, there's, there's a, there's a theme and authenticity there that we really try to develop and help them, help them build.
Colin True
00:24:17.173 - 00:25:35.375
I think the two things in common there is still founder led companies and we talk a lot about that.
I mean, you, there's a really stark contrast between the stuff you typically hear me complain about on this podcast and who's in charge of the brand I'm complaining about typically.
You know, it's like when it's, when it gets out of the hands of the founder, that's typically when the stuff that isn't as much fun to talk about starts to happen.
The one thing, and I'll kind of point out, and by the way, these are when you look at the landscape of all the different E commerce, upcycling, whatever it is programs. There's some unique things about both of these. The one thing, and from my more cynical lens looking at it though, is when is the sort of.
I would love to see then. And sounds like this is what Jones is doing. But how do the.
What I get from as a consumer sending something back, how do I get that to then reinvest in more secondhand stuff?
Because a lot of brands, and to a certain extent, and I know Fly Low has this on their website as well, you're going to be enticed with will you get something, a discount off of something new. Right. So again, that kind of cynical lens. It'S like, well, are you using this as more just a way to market.
Your new product line to the even the extent of like, why do you have a separate website?
You know, for your, you know, this program, like Leftover Land should just be, I feel like integrated into the Fly Low main site because that's where most consumers are going to go. So, I mean, isn't the most optical income putting more consumers into secondhand products rather than new stuff?
Aaron Provine
00:25:35.675 - 00:26:00.199
Yeah. You know, I think the simple answer. So I have a couple of answers here.
I'm going to start with the real simple answer around like the integration in terms of platforms. Yeah. There's a very real development cost there.
And E Commerce as a whole, not every single brand is on the same platform or is built with the same stack. And a lot of them don't even have their own development development teams.
Colin True
00:26:00.287 - 00:26:00.967
Yeah. Right.
Aaron Provine
00:26:01.071 - 00:26:12.559
So that is very difficult. And when you're talking about the big brands versus everybody else, it is a very different world in terms of how they look at their technology stack.
Colin True
00:26:12.687 - 00:26:13.047
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:26:13.111 - 00:26:33.801
And so I think that that's answer number one around why you're looking at separate experiences. Every brand that I've talked to has wanted, like in an ideal world, they've wanted to be a part of the experience.
But the challenge ends up becoming kind of a resource constraint around development resources. Right.
Colin True
00:26:33.913 - 00:26:34.605
Yeah.
Aaron Provine
00:26:34.985 - 00:27:18.279
That's like a very real thing that I think everybody forgets is that when you develop a website, when you create a website, there are very real technical limitations and overcoming those is a challenge. So that's why you have some websites in terms of kind of your other component, which is really kind of around this idea of new versus used. Right.
And I think Owen Comerford wrote an article for the Outdoor Daily about brands and how they are not utilizing used as an asset. Right. And I completely agree with that point of view.
Colin True
00:27:18.387 - 00:27:18.655
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:27:18.695 - 00:27:38.903
And I, and I agree with that point of view, really, because the used customer is completely different than the new customer. Used customer is typically younger. They are typically more sustainably minded and they're looking for affordable options to get into outdoor.
Colin True
00:27:38.999 - 00:27:39.351
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:27:39.423 - 00:27:47.553
So outdoor as a whole, it's a luxury industry. Right. When you're charging $700 for a jacket, like, no offense, that's a luxury item.
Colin True
00:27:47.609 - 00:27:48.897
That is a luxury item.
Aaron Provine
00:27:48.961 - 00:27:59.097
Yes, sir. Like, I love that the, that the item was created for climbing mountains and doing cool stuff like that. That, that appears, unless you're arcs, then.
Colin True
00:27:59.121 - 00:28:02.185
It was just, you know, for looking cool in the city, let's be honest, you know.
Aaron Provine
00:28:02.225 - 00:28:04.177
Yeah. Well, isn't warp core dead?
Colin True
00:28:04.281 - 00:28:06.761
Yeah, that's what GQ said.
Aaron Provine
00:28:06.913 - 00:28:13.111
Yeah. You know, but the point is like it's, it's a luxury. It's a luxury business.
Colin True
00:28:13.183 - 00:28:13.463
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:28:13.519 - 00:28:48.455
And so the outdoor customer is typically a little bit older. And in order for the outdoor industry to introduce new customers to the industry, used is an incredible option that really isn't being utilized.
And a primary, there's really two primary reasons why I believe that the industry isn't taking advantage of it. Number one is probably the biggest one. Right. So the volume of new production really drives a consumption based incentive structure, right?
Colin True
00:28:48.495 - 00:28:48.719
Sure.
Aaron Provine
00:28:48.767 - 00:28:58.559
So when a brand works with a manufacturing facility, oftentimes there's minimums. They have to hit minimums.
Colin True
00:28:58.647 - 00:28:59.275
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:29:00.095 - 00:29:07.857
There's also a belief in a lot of brands that they have to build products that hit specific niches.
Colin True
00:29:07.921 - 00:29:08.121
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:29:08.153 - 00:29:17.417
And so they build five different down jackets that all do relatively the same thing and they have to overproduce by 30% in order to hit that.
Colin True
00:29:17.481 - 00:29:23.857
It's important that, that pockets in a different place. Aaron. Okay. You gotta have the one with the weird pocket. Otherwise what are we doing?
Aaron Provine
00:29:24.001 - 00:29:53.309
And I understand, like you have to build a certain amount of products to make it viable. Right? A certain amount of things to make it viable.
And there's certainly amount, a certain amount of production that needs to be done in order to make it cost effective. But there's way too much stuff being built. That's just the bottom line.
And so ultimately what you get is you have a consumption based incentive structure that often undercuts resale value.
Colin True
00:29:53.397 - 00:29:53.693
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:29:53.749 - 00:30:06.493
Because you over produce, you're selling closeouts. When you sell closeouts, closeouts are off price. Oftentimes it's a 30 to 40% off, 50% off. And it ultimately drives the total market value down.
Colin True
00:30:06.589 - 00:30:07.949
Right? Right. Yeah.
Aaron Provine
00:30:08.117 - 00:30:15.901
And then ultimately you get this collision when you start to get into that value structure where used is a competitor to New.
Colin True
00:30:16.013 - 00:30:16.381
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:30:16.453 - 00:30:49.167
Because consumers are going to be price shopping and they're going to look at the value of a used product versus the value of a new product. Right? Which kind of gets into my second point, which is that brands aim ultimately to control the market, right?
And they utilize a lot of these resale programs to control, you know, the market. You know, I've had a lot of conversations where people just don't like that their brand is on ebay and they don't like that their brand is on Amazon.
They look at it as gray market product and channel pollution.
Colin True
00:30:49.271 - 00:30:49.655
Right?
Aaron Provine
00:30:49.735 - 00:31:26.621
And every brand, you know, every retailer, they want to protect their asset. And their asset is their name, their image, their likeness, Right? It's. It's who they are.
But the reality of used is that once you sell that product, you no longer own that product. That product is now owned by the consumer.
And so by controlling the market effectively, what you see with branded resale tends to be kind of a way to own and manage that distribution structure.
Colin True
00:31:26.693 - 00:31:27.305
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:31:27.765 - 00:31:35.401
Ultimately, what you get is you redirect supply away from the consumers actively seeking it and you limit the accessibility and impact.
Colin True
00:31:35.513 - 00:31:35.833
Right?
Aaron Provine
00:31:35.889 - 00:31:49.185
So those two things are very real challenges that I think are. They're not talked about, but I think effectively they get to your point that you kind of hammer on all the time, which is overproduce.
Overproduce, Overproduce, Right, Totally.
Colin True
00:31:49.225 - 00:33:47.589
And, you know, and it's a good point. It's a good reminder to me, too. I am kind of coming out from that mindset.
And then when you, you know, you look at these brands that are, you know, I mean, we talked a lot about, you know, Marmot as a zombie brand.
I mean, exactly that where, like right now there's no value in the products that they make because you can go on Amazon and buy marmot precips for 60 bucks. I mean, like all of this stuff and then just the build, build, build, cheap, cheap, cheap nature of like these large corporate owners.
And then so then when you kind of like flip that and put it just entirely in a box like, hey, we have a used portion now. Isn't it great? And then you kind of start picking it apart, what it could mean. It's like actually. But we still have to react to.
The larger ecosystem with what we're in, right? So let's say so actually, just even having a used sort of marketplace is probably a win. But then, you know, it.
So I definitely need to buy, change my point of view, how I'm kind of going into the conversation I think the.
And then the other thing that I thought was interesting that I've learned probably since we started this conversation over the last couple of months was when Sophie Benson was on, and she's a environmental fashion journalist and understanding that the larger fashion world, which I'll again remind my listeners, the outdoor industry is part of, because we all make things like, you know, like every, like we, if we're making apparel, this is how we make apparel. No matter what the fabrics are, the. Outdoors is miles ahead of the rest.
Of the fashion world.
I mean, no one's having conversations with someone like Aaron or what Dan is doing at flylo or frankly, even like some of the maybe more or less sincere efforts being made by the larger outdoor brands as well at, you know, American Eagle and the Gap, you know, so that is something to really keep in mind is that we are truly leading this in this regard. And probably what we should need to do is get our act together and like, highlight like, hey, this is what we're doing in the outdoors.
And the rest of you need to hop on board so that we can truly make, get to a place where it is, it is better.
Things are getting in a better direction because, yeah, Mass, everything's still just being, the real problem is everything's just being massively over overproduced, as evidenced by the insane number of Sierra stores that are going to open in 2024 and 2025.
Aaron Provine
00:33:47.717 - 00:33:54.621
But it's, but I mean, like, you also need to step back and like, that is, that is the economy that we live in, right?
Colin True
00:33:54.653 - 00:34:04.437
Yeah, totally. How do you change it? How do you, how do you. It's the disease or more.
Right. I mean, how do you tell people like, hey, I know you've been, we've been trained you for decades now to want more and make more money.
Aaron Provine
00:34:04.501 - 00:34:04.677
Yeah.
Colin True
00:34:04.701 - 00:34:05.821
You got to stop doing that.
Aaron Provine
00:34:05.933 - 00:34:06.221
Yeah.
Colin True
00:34:06.253 - 00:34:07.621
I mean, it's good luck.
Aaron Provine
00:34:07.813 - 00:34:25.172
Capitalism is, is, it's growth, right? It's, it's creating more growth. Right.
And if you're a brand, you know, a lot of, you know, I look at the outdoor industry as, you know, brands tend to think of themselves as everybody's going to wear my stuff head to toe.
Colin True
00:34:25.268 - 00:34:28.196
Right. I mean, I'll think it. They all think it.
Aaron Provine
00:34:28.340 - 00:34:42.900
Right. You know, and that, you know, that leads to effectively thinking that it's a zero sum game, right? It's market share, market share, market share.
We need more market share. Right. And the only way that you get there is by producing, producing, producing.
Colin True
00:34:42.972 - 00:34:43.180
Right?
Aaron Provine
00:34:43.212 - 00:34:53.860
And so you end up in this, in this, this Cycle where it's just. It's. It's mass. Mass production. Again, that's. That's a big reason why we partnered with the brands that we have.
Colin True
00:34:53.972 - 00:34:54.548
Yeah.
Aaron Provine
00:34:54.676 - 00:35:27.519
Because differently in that scenario. Right. And if there is any hope of us kind of evolving that I think that there's fundamental change that needs to be happened.
So when you kind of bang on brands for launching resale platforms, I kind of got to call you out. Like, it's a little bit of some bullshit, to be honest. Brands launching this is a good thing.
The more we talk about this, the more we can get it in front of the customer, the better we're going to be.
Colin True
00:35:27.607 - 00:35:27.903
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:35:27.959 - 00:36:13.495
And it's going to take time, it's going to take effort. And as states like California introduce legislation and we start legislating this, it's going to move, it's going to happen.
It's going to be a lot quicker. You look at how PFAS changed, we're looking at the same scenario with textiles. And so nothing happens overnight.
Takes a long time to turn these boats. I applaud any brand that is. That is looking to launch this.
And the more that we can get this in front of the customer, the more that they're going to start thinking used and eventually that is going to eat away and erode at the amount of new product.
Colin True
00:36:15.395 - 00:36:32.795
My favorite thing about this show is having people come on and tell me that I'm wrong. So I definitely have learned a few things over the last few months. I mean, from my initial.
I mean, I think I've owned up to it a couple of different times, but this is great. The one thing I won't apologize for and. And I'm sorry if you came up with it. I don't like the name Leftover Land. I think it's a terrible name.
And I won't. And you'll never change my mind on that one.
Aaron Provine
00:36:33.615 - 00:36:47.151
Yeah. You know, we give brands a lot of freedom in terms of how they want to approach that world. And yeah, that is. That's Dan. That is his kind of.
That's how he approaches the world.
Colin True
00:36:47.183 - 00:36:50.655
Dan, coming on the show next, we're going to have that conversation.
Aaron Provine
00:36:50.815 - 00:36:57.519
I think it's a playful play on it. I think it's better than, you know, re whatchamacallit.
Colin True
00:36:57.687 - 00:37:06.039
Well, okay, now credit where Credit Sue. At least it's not re colon. Something. Fill in the blank, which is basically what everybody else is doing. Credit credit there for sure.
Aaron Provine
00:37:06.207 - 00:37:12.671
Throw something in a chat GPT and just say, rewrap this, you know, that's.
Colin True
00:37:12.743 - 00:37:40.691
That'S why I had such a stick up my ass about this stuff is. Because it does feel very not thought out.
Like, hey, let's just have this and then we can say we have it.
And that's just my experience with brands is largely like that's typically what you're kind of dealing with and a lot of times efforts that are beyond, let's just make money by making more stuff. But, you know, no, you call it right. You're right.
And also like I said, the context provided by Sophie, like, no, man, this is an important thing that our industry is doing and more of it only leads to better solutions down the road for sure.
Aaron Provine
00:37:40.843 - 00:38:02.907
Yeah. So I don't know. I applaud flylo for coming up with something that's not just a reapplication of the application. Right. I think it's different.
I think it's, you know, it spells out something unique and it's, and it's uniquely their voice. So I actually applaud them for thinking outside the box and approaching it in a different way.
Colin True
00:38:03.091 - 00:38:53.345
Well, lastly, I want to talk about is sort of the competitive landscape of the whole category. So you guys been around since 99. You've been a leading voice for a long time now.
So, you know, but during this sort of recent uptick of the kind of the brand driven secondhand news, you know, we've heard from out and back, we've heard Peter from Tersis Solutions, you mentioned earlier, he's going to come on the show in a few weeks and a lot of people working to build businesses and solutions in the secondhand space.
I mean, in talking with all of you, it does seem like you kind of have this sort of almost like frenemies type of relationship and that your competitors who also sort of recognize what's at stake and that general, again, like we've just been talking about the upside of a robust secondhand marketplace is important in this sort of competitive landscape. And as this grows, you know, what do you feel like? I mean, you talked a little bit about what gear trade is doing and what makes it different.
But, but how do you look to be unique when as this sort of becomes a more competitive landscape that you're operating in?
Aaron Provine
00:38:53.685 - 00:40:27.383
I mean, this space is already hyper competitive. Like that's the part that I think is, you know, needs to be said, it is already hyper competitive.
There's a lot of people that are doing this, whether it's brick and mortar stores, whether it's digitally, whether it's branded resale, like there's a lot of people that are already doing this. And so I look at it as already fairly, fairly competitive. I look at our business model as a little bit different.
I have a really good relationship with Peter. I work with him on a number of other projects and Tersis, in my opinion, is one of the service providers that absolutely nails it.
They have an incredible model model that they are doing incredible things. You know, we're a little bit different because we're consumer facing, whereas they are more on the back end, you know.
And when I look at, you know, again, I kind of called it out earlier, right. It's like there are marketplaces, there are front end tooling and then there's back end tooling. Right.
You know, what we do is we're really good at connecting consumers to used gear. You know, we've, we sell a lot of stuff on our platform, we process a lot of stuff on our platform.
You know, as a matter of fact, I mean last 12 months, you know, we've processed over 100,000 items in our facility. It's not a small amount of used, especially considering that each item is, you know, unique.
Colin True
00:40:27.479 - 00:40:27.807
Right.
Aaron Provine
00:40:27.871 - 00:44:20.755
And we've created custom tooling around that to help identify the those products.
We have really interesting custom built software that allows us to identify items quickly, build those SKUs quickly so that we can do it in a cost effective way.
When we build out trade in programs, we have custom site build out, we take in any brand used gear, we have pricing, it's like all, all the things that everybody else talks about in terms of the services that they provide, we have that as well.
For us, as we continue to think about the world and think about how the world grows, our focus remains on creating a great user experience for selling used gear. That's our focus.
We don't, you know, maybe to my own detriment, I have a lot of brands that reach out to me about closeout and we don't really do that. It's not a game that we play compared to some of our other competitors who do have a lot of overstock used gear or overstock new gear.
You know, we really focus on getting what I like to call non traditional inventory, right. And that is used returns. We have a couple of partners where we sell a lot of used returns.
So product that has been used by somebody and has been returned, we help some major retailers solve that problem. So used gear, we help brands with that same scenario. And so for us, our focus is really on used gear.
I fundamentally believe that there's a lot there's too much stuff being produced. And for us to be able to be successful as an industry, successful as a community, we have to lean into sustainability.
We have to lean into keeping stuff in use longer. It is just a major part of, of what we need to do. And so our focus is on enabling that regardless of who it's with.
And we don't necessarily want to enable kind of the bad behavior which is overproducing and creating it.
I think that we do need to get to a point where we, as a collective industry, do think about what we're producing, how much we're producing, and what the downstream impacts of that production is and how that plays out to the overall evolution of the market. And I think that there are some hard decisions that are ultimately going to have to be made around what we are making.
And so as much as I want to stand up here and be on my high horse and be like, hey, look at us sustainable, like, there are a lot of things that we do that are not sustainable. And I know that. And it drives me nuts, drives me up the wall. But this is a process. This is a progression. My previous life, I was in retail.
I was at an online retailer for 14 years and buying and selling a lot of new stuff. And that was the old model. I think we need to evolve that. And so that is what we are trying to do with gear trade.
Colin True
00:44:21.135 - 00:44:32.917
Hey, man, it's always a pleasure to have you on. I hope let's not wait, you know, multiple NFL seasons for it to happen again. And appreciate it, man.
Always appreciate your insight on this topic specifically. So thanks again for coming on. Appreciate it.
Aaron Provine
00:44:33.091 - 00:44:34.365
Thanks for having me.
Colin True
00:44:35.465 - 00:45:00.121
All right, that's the show for today.
What did you think? Send your feedback on this and every episode to myrockfightmail.com big thanks to my guest, Aaron Provine. The Rock Fight.
It's a production of Rock Fight llc. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening.
And here to lull you to sleep with his sweet, sweet voice is Chris Demais, who's going to perform for you right now the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock Fighters.
Chris DeMakes
00:45:00.193 - 00:45:56.005
Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree.
We talk about human powered outdoor activities and pic bites about topics that we find interesting like pop culture music, the latest movie reviews, ideas that aim for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Welcome to the rock fight Rock fight, rock fight welcome to the rock slide Rock fight, Rock fight, rock light Rock fight, rock fight welcome to the rock fight Rock fight, rock fight.
Aaron Provine
00:45:58.025 - 00:45:58.265
Ra.