Urban Outfitters preps Nuuly Thrift online resale marketplace

Urban Outfitters is set to launch a marketplace for secondhand goods.

Nuuly Thrift, which was built in house, will be available as an iPhone app later this year.

It will be a sister platform to Urban Outfitters’ subscription rental programme, Nuuly Rent, and will allow customers to sell and buy items from any brand, not just in-house products.

“Urban has been in the vintage renewal business since our founding in 1970,” Richard Hayne, Chief Executive and Chairman, said in a statement.

“With the launch of Nuuly Thrift, we will capitalise on shifting customer behaviour and gain market share in the rapidly expanding online resale market.”

The secondhand apparel market is red hot at the moment.

The space, which, according to research by ThredUp, is forecast to reach $77 billion in sales in the next five years, has been widely embraced by younger shoppers.

Data strategy

Urban Outfitters recently deployed the Qlik Sense platform for in-store reporting, expanding access to near real-time data for store managers and associates in its 650+ locations across the United States and EMEA.

“Our data strategy is centred on maximising the efficiencies and scalability of the cloud, and whenever possible creating cloud to cloud synergies,” said John Devine, CIO at Urban Outfitters.

“We already benefit from Qlik Data Integration feeding our Snowflake cloud data warehouse.”

“With Qlik sitting on top of Snowflake, we can confidently scale access to more near real-time data for in-store employees.”

“This will help improve store performance wherever our associates are in the world, while reducing the stress and costs associated with managing our on-premise data sources.”