Oh, we do love our industry lingo. We get a little frisson of excitement when someone on a Zoom call says “BOPIS,” or “omnichannel,” or—is it getting hot in here?—“endless aisle.”

Now Recurate, a two-year-old tech startup that helps brands launch their own resale programs, has a new offering for the lexicon: circulars.

Think of circulars as consumers who have a baggage carousel moving through their closets—purchases of used clothing are on the belt when it goes in, and items to resell to make room for them when it comes out.

• Nearly three out of four (73%) sellers of secondhand items also purchase them.
• Compared with consumers who only buy or only sell used items, these circulars are the youngest (aged 18–40) and the majority have an income of $50,000–$100,000.
• Among circulars, 48% say that they purchase clothing and accessories with the intention of re-selling them down the line.

The survey, from Recurate and social impact agency BBMG, surveyed 1,000 adults in the US and Canada in March.

“We’re seeing this actually fairly large class of customers that are buying things with the intention of reselling them, and when they’re doing that, they’re thinking differently about the products they’re buying,” Adam Siegel, co-founder and CEO of Recurate, told us. “They want to buy products that are high quality, that last a long time, that have a high resale value.”

Shopping for resale strategies. Recurate, which was founded in 2020, raised $14 million in a Series A funding round in May. Among the brands whose resale programs it built are Steve Madden, Mara Hoffman, and Frye.

• With third-party marketplaces selling used clothing like eBay, Poshmark, and ThredUp being so popular, Recurate urges brands to open their own resale marketplaces to keep their customers close.

But while both sellers and shoppers may be looking for high quality, it’s not the highest-priced items that are selling the most briskly.

Here is your quick look at circulars, the next trend in resale.—AAN

People have been saying for years that malls are dying, but a few fresh strategies might be giving them a new lease on life. Visits are on the rebound, per a recent Placer.ai white paper.

• Visits were down just 5% YO3Y in February across all mall segments (indoor, outlet, and open-air), and only 1.8% in April for indoor and 4.8% for open-air malls.
• Traffic dropped in May and June, but the visit gaps shrunk again in July, with indoor down just 3.5% and open-air down 2.7% YO3Y.
• Visit lengths are also up two minutes from 2020 levels (but are still down eight minutes since 2019).

Over the past year, malls have been establishing “a more diverse and fresh tenant mix,” and rethinking what stores belong in these shopping centers, Ethan Chernofsky, VP of Marketing at Placer.ai, told Retail Brew in an email.

“A shift to a more diverse and fresh tenant mix and a wider focus on what belongs in a mall is helping to reestablish the role of top-tier malls,” he said.

Out with the old: One way to reel in customers? Revamping an old Sears, apparently. Last August, Pennsylvania’s York Galleria Mall turned a former Sears into a casino, boosting foot traffic by 31.4% YO3Y—and it’s sustained those visits over the past year, per Placer.ai.

• New Jersey’s Ocean County Mall, too, repurposed a closed Sears to an exterior lifestyle center featuring popular chains like Ulta and HomeSense. Dwell time rose by three minutes and attracted a younger audience, causing the median visitor age to drop ~three years.

“Retailers gain from the wider experience created within the mall, but stand to benefit even more as a greater emphasis is placed on entertainment, experiences, and food and beverage,” Chernofsky said.

Keep reading for more winning strategies to draw shoppers in.—EC

HR Brew’s Kristen Parisi recently interviewed Lorraine Stomski, SVP of associate learning and leadership at Walmart, about recruiting and retention at the company:

We redesigned our performance [review] strategy around four conversations, around having goal-setting conversations monthly, because one of the things that we learned from the pandemic was you can’t just set it and forget it. [Employees] know [their] goals at the beginning of the year and [they] have to continually revisit them. We asked them about the quality of their conversations and found that the quality had increased year over year.

Keep reading here.—KP

Today’s top retail reads.

Luxury of choice: Black Americans have been big clients of luxury brands, but many say there’s little reciprocity. “I want luxury brands to show up with the richness and the depth that Black folks show up with—and that’s not what’s happening,” said diversity strategist Amber Cabral. “Where’s the wealth of our identities?” (Business of Fashion)

Bike peddles: Unable to meet outsized demand during the pandemic, bike shops are now overstocked, as sales decline. (the Wall Street Journal)

Bear essentials: Viewers of Hulu’s The Bear have had an unlikely obsession with the nicely cut t-shirts (and other basic menswear) worn by its main character. (Glossy)

In our budgeting bag: Money Scoop is our thrice-weekly personal finance newsletter sharing smart spending habits. Learn how to better invest, budget, manage taxes, and much more. Subscribe for free.

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

Hard seltzer has been a particularly fizzy segment of the drinks market in recent years, reaching what Insider called an “all-time high” last summer when—citing NielsenIQ data—it reported that sales for the beverage were up 80% YoY in the 52 weeks that ended May 22, 2021.

But the category could be heading for a hangover.

• Our own beverage maven, Erin Cabrey, reported recently that Truly Hard Seltzer, made by Boston Beer, saw dollar sales drop 17% in Q2.
• Quartz didn’t hold its (spiked) punches, declaring in an Aug. 3 headline that “the hard seltzer craze has ended,” and adding fresh NielsenIQ data that sales have fallen 5.5% in the last year.
• The Atlantic recently offered this bit of trenchant analysis: “Americans are realizing the truth about White Claw: It’s bad!”

You tell us: What’s your deal with hard seltzer?

Circling back: Last week we asked you about buy now, pay later, or BNPL, the payment craze which, like hard seltzer, may be hitting a rough patch.

• Klarna, the Swedish company specializing in BNPL, saw its valuation drop to $6.7 billion in July, down from $46 billion in 2021, an 85% plunge.
• Some consumer advocates and economists caution that BNPL is being used increasingly for everyday purchases, like groceries and gas, which could lead to debt problems.

We asked about your own impression of BNPL, and 47.8% of you said that you’ve used BNPL and like it; 4.5% have done so and didn’t like it. (As for those who haven’t used BNPL, 6% of you said you planned to try it, while 41.8% said no, they don’t plan to try it.)

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Uniqlo’s beloved sister brand GU expands into the US with SoHo pop-up
• Selling glasses to gamers with 20/20 vision
• Live shopping: power in the hands of the small brand?