Clothing Reseller ThredUP Preps Its IPO

ThredUP, a secondhand apparel marketplace, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering (IPO), according to a press release.

The firm will be offering shares of its Class A common stock. The number of shares and prices haven’t been determined, the release stated. ThredUP lists its common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol TDUP.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays will be lead book-running managers for the offering, the release stated, while William Blair and Wells Fargo Securities are acting simply as book-running managers.

Meanwhile, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Needham & Company, Piper Sandler and Telsey Advisory Group are acting as co-managers, according to the release.

ThredUP is a marketplace for secondhand goods and had a big year during 2020 as many other “reCommerce” firms did, riding a wave of companies dabbling in secondhand sales, PYMNTS reported.

ThredUP was valued at $28 billion and was projected last summer to hit $64 billion by 2025. Co-Founder and CEO James Reinhart said resale is “here to stay,” and it is just a question of who the best sellers will be.

The company found that resale markets had grown 25 percent faster than the broader retail market in 2019, and despite fears that COVID-19 would kill the market, the pandemic only bolstered sales as studies showed the coronavirus didn’t linger on secondhand goods.

Secondhand goods aren’t likely to go anywhere. By 2029, secondhand goods will make up around 17 percent of a person’s closet space — that’s up from just 3 percent in 2009, ThredUP projected. Those statistics put resale clothes just behind items like off-price goods bought from retailers like TJ Maxx, which sit at 19 percent.

Department stores’ shares of a closet are expected to decline in the same timeline, going down to 7 percent in 2029, a decline from 22 percent in 2009.