Thursday, August 5, 2010

“ThredUp, a trading site for kid's clothing, pulling up stakes in Cambridge - Boston Globe” plus 2 more

“ThredUp, a trading site for kid's clothing, pulling up stakes in Cambridge - Boston Globe” plus 2 more

ThredUp, a trading site for kid's clothing, pulling up stakes in Cambridge - Boston Globe

Posted: 05 Aug 2010 10:38 AM PDT

thredup.jpgJust over a month after it raised $1.4 million from a quartet of venture capital firms, Cambridge-based ThredUP, a site that enables parents to swap clothing their kids no longer wear, is moving to San Francisco. ThredUP co-founder James Reinhart says the company signed a lease on office space this week. Five employees will head west with him, with two remaining in Boston (both working from home.)

Reinhart says the decision was primarily a personal one. He and his wife had their first child last month, and his wife is originally from the Bay area and has family there. Reinhart spent six years in Santa Cruz, working as a teacher and helping to start a charter school, in between his undergrad studies at Boston College and earning dual Master's degrees from Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government.

In raising funds for the company earlier this year, Reinhart says "I'd mentioned to Trinity Ventures [based on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park] that we were thinking about moving [west], and I think they sort of came to expect that it would happen at some point" — especially after Trinity decided to lead the company's funding round in July.

Two Boston firms, Founder Collective and NextView Ventures, and a New York investor, High Line Venture Partners, also put money into ThredUP in that round.

Eric Paley of Founder Collective told me this afternoon that "when I met James, before Trinity got involved, he told me that he was probably moving to the Bay area," but that Reinhart was also considering staying in Cambridge. "All things considered, I'd love for him to be here, but look, we invest in companies in Europe and California. I didn't push him in any direction," Paley says, noting that when he was running the MIT spin-out Brontes Technologies, Left Coast investors at times encouraged him to move the Lexington-based company to California. (Paley successfully resisted.)

"I don't think Boston would've been at all a bad place to do this kind of start-up," Paley says.

And neither does Reinhart, noting that several Boston-area companies like Swaptree, Gazelle, and RelayRides are encouraging people to swap, re-sell, and share things in new ways.

But he does note that when looking to hire people who've built and marketed consumer-oriented Web businesses, there's a much deeper talent pool in the Bay area. Reinhart says that Trinity has already started to help ThredUP connect with some prospective new hires.

ThredUP launched last fall, and shifted its focus from men's and women's clothing to kid's stuff this past April. Members of the site list a box of kid's clothing they'd like to get rid of, and they can select a box of clothes they'd like to receive from the site's inventory. Members pay $13 per trade, and a premium membership with extra features is available for $30 per year. (It costs the company $10.70 to ship each box via USPS Priority Mail.) About a quarter of the site's swappers eventually upgrade to the premium level, Reinhart says, adding that about 1000 members are joining the site each week. There are currently about 1500 boxes listed on the site for trade, he says, and members have shipped 3000 boxes to one another.

"We believe we're building something for every parent in America," Reinhart says. "This is a fundamental consumer behavior change. We want people to say, 'Oh, my kid has grown out of these clothes. I need to ThredUP.'"

Reinhart (center, above) met co-founder Oliver Lubin while studying history at Boston College; he met Chris Homer, ThredUP's chief technology officer and third co-founder, while at Harvard Business School.

ThredUP plans to be in their new Union Square digs in San Francisco by September 1st. In total, the company has raised about $1.7 million in funding.

(The photo above comes from a Boston Globe feature on the "25 Most Stylish Bostonians of 2009.")

Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The Big Market For Big Kids' Clothes - Forbes

Posted: 04 Aug 2010 05:06 PM PDT

Childhood obesity is on the rise, and no one is excited about the prospects for affected children. But the public health crisis may prove an opportunity for retailers: Plus-size kids clothing is one of the most promising niche markets in the fashion world.

As the waistlines of American adults have expanded, so have those of their kids: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 17% of children ages to 19 years are obese. That number is far higher than it was just a few decades ago: Among preschool children aged 2 to 5 obesity increased from 5% to 10.4% between 1980 and 2008, from 6.5% to 19.6% among those aged 6 to 11 and from 5% to 18.1% among adolescents aged 12 to 19.

Plus-size clothing is already a major segment of the fashion business: Sales of women's and girls' plus-size apparel is a $47 billion industry, accounting for 27% of all clothing sales and nearly 40% of all women's and girls' apparel sales, according to Marketresearch.com.

Though some manufacturers and retailers cut back on plus-size offerings during the recession, they've now realized that curvy girls are willing to spend, especially on well-made, fashion-forward pieces. From April 2009 to April 2010, the plus-size market increased 1.4%, even as women's apparel as a whole declined 0.8%, according to market research firm NPD Group.

More companies are looking to expand their plus-sized offerings. In 2009 Hanesbrands ( HBI - news - people ) announced that it would create a plus-size women's line for Wal-Mart Stores ( WMT - news - people ), and some designers sent plus-size models down the runway at London Fashion Week.

Video: Inside The $47 Billion--And Growing--Plus-Size Clothing Industry

Meanwhile, overweight kids are starting to demand access to the same things their thinner counterparts have: cool, well-made, trendy clothing. And children are a growing market with serious spending power: By 2020 population estimates predict there will be 80 million children in the U.S., accounting for about 24% of the population.

"It makes sense that companies would delve into plus-size for children," says Oona McSweeney, vice president of retail and special markets for StyleSight, a trend forecasting agency. "The need for more, better products in plus-size will trickle down to children. There's a tremendous amount of energy surrounding plus-size clothes right now. It's such an important market."

Major retailers who already offer plus-size items for children include Sears ( SHLD - news - people ), Lands' End, JCPenney ( JCP - news - people ) and specialty tween retailer Justice. But whereas plus-sized adults can shop at their own stores, including Lane Bryant, Ashley Stewart, Avenue and Torrid, don't expect similar options for plus-sized kids. "The way to do it is to take a great children's brand and extend the size offerings," says McSweeney. "Children want to pull the same clothes off of the rack as their friends, not go to a different store and be isolated."

Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Kids Helping Kids clothing sale is Friday - Carmi Times

Posted: 05 Aug 2010 04:47 AM PDT

Carmi, Ill. —

The annual White County Kids Helping Kids clothing drive began Monday and ended Wednesday.

The Kids Helping Kids clothing sale will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 6 at the Extension Building on College Avenue in Carmi.

4-H Kids Helping Kids was initiated in 2003 by the White County 4-H Federation. Every year White County 4-H members and their families sponsor events and fundraisers to help support this cause.

"Hopefully, this event can help a number of families that have children in our community prepare for back to school," said the spokesman.

All items at this sale will be available for 25 cents per item. All proceeds from the event will go towards the Kids Helping Kids foundation.

Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)