Either we’re running out of fingers, or it seems like fashion retailers continue to launch resale initiatives every other month. Just last month, Carhartt debuted its resale platform in partnership with Trove. Also in March, H&M extended its “Pre-Loved” program to the US in collaboration with ThredUp.

In the luxury space, brands from Gucci to Balenciaga seem to have staked their claim in the resale market. Suffice to say, the space is getting increasingly competitive. Yet the market continues to expand, begging the question: Is a resale platform still a good bet for fast fashion and luxury retailers? For most brands, the answer is yes, experts tell us.

“It’s a good idea for brands to explore the secondhand market and find out if they have a role in it,” Claire Tassin, retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, told Retail Brew. “And I see a lot of what’s been happening over the last couple of years as some fantastic experiments to see what the right type of investment is.”

Sustainability and circularity are factors both fast fashion and luxury brands take into account when deciding whether to pursue resale, but for luxury brands specifically, resale can also be a way to attract new consumers.

“If you’re a premium or luxury brand, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy [your products] at full price, but in a resale environment, they could,” Brian Ehrig, partner in the consumer practice of Kearney, told Retail Brew.

For Andy Ruben, founder and executive chairman at Trove, a branded resale solutions company that works with retailers like Canada Goose and REI, resale is a valuable proposition for retailers regardless of whether they’re in the premium space or fast fashion.

Keep reading here.—JS

Personalized marketing is the name of the game these days. How to do it? Call in the influencers. Seriously, because 75% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if it comes with a personalized recommendation.

But influencing is harder than it looks. You’re gonna need some help.

Luckily for you, Listrak can show you how to ace it. Their Identity Resolution Marketing solution, GXP, identifies the anonymous traffic that comes to your site from your influencer(s), then collects the essential zero- and first-party data so you can personalize the shopping experience and future shopping experiences to drive more conversions.

Want the deets? GXP is a white-glove, full-service model run by a team of experts who guarantee its revenue. Brands like Tula Skincare, Le Creuset, and 7 For All Mankind love it.

Capitalize on the traffic influencers send to your site. Try Listrak’s GXP 120-day risk-free pilot.

Walmart Global Tech approaches emerging technologies like Legos: reusable blocks that can be used to build both Boba Fett and Baby Yoda. Or, in this case, to build tools for both associate productivity and shopping efficiency.

“We want to build reusable capabilities that can easily be composed and plugged into different experiences by the different market teams in different businesses,” said Cheryl Ainoa, Walmart’s SVP of new business and emerging technologies. “Our goal is to identify those core technologies that are going to change the way consumers interact with each other, with their devices…and, therefore, are going to impact the future of retail.”

One example of Walmart’s “Lego” strategy is the retailer’s approach to conversational AI, Ainoa said.

Early adopters: Walmart has been investing in natural language understanding—the ability to recognize human intent and generate responses—for five years. Ainoa and her team are focused on three major AI programs: retail intent, entity recognition, and contextual understanding.

In other words, they’re training AI to recognize retail specific activities (Are you browsing or looking for a specific product? Do you want to see how a rug looks in your room?) to differentiate between products (knowing Walmart’s immense catalog) and pulling from the context in which words are being used to determine user intent.

Keep reading here.—MA

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

We’re getting to know Harry Wolasnky, senior account executive at Rokt, an ecommerce technology company working with businesses like Domino’s, Wayfair, and Poshmark.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? When people ask me about Rokt, I usually ask if they have ever received an offer from a brand like HelloFresh after completing a purchase on sites like Wayfair, Ticketmaster, or Kohl’s. We power the connection between brands and e-commerce marketplaces. For brands, we are a scalable marketing channel to reach new customers. For e-commerce sites, we enable them to monetize their post-purchase “thank you” page and reward their customers for shopping with them. It’s a win-win!

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? As a salesperson, I am constantly traveling and networking.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Onboarding two nonprofits to help them acquire new donors across our network. It has been very rewarding to watch them succeed.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about this year, and why? I’m excited about re-commerce; major brands are starting to sell used goods and it allows consumers to save a bunch of money. Also, good for the planet!

What’s your go-to coffee order? I drink about four cold brews per day (We have it on tap in our office).

Worst piece of advice you’ve received? “NFTs are going to change the world. Load up.”—Crypto friend.

What was your favorite retail product when you were 15, and what’s your favorite retail product now? When I was 15, I probably got the most ROI out of my longboard to get around town. Now, I’d say my Dyson V8 has been a game changer.

Today’s top retail reads.

French connection: Inside Amazon’s immense public relations campaign (which shares a name with a Pixar movie starring a friendly, food-loving rodent) to polish its reputation in France. (Bloomberg)

Beverage brain: A look at ChatGPT through the lens of…cocktails. What else? But tech experts and bartenders view AI-generated cocktail recipes as more like a first draft than a final product. (The Atlantic)

Online pile-on: Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s partnership with Bud Light drew calls for boycotts, angry news segments, and a bomb threat. The beauty and fashion industries have also faced conservative backlash for working with trans influencers, but the degree of public support amid the backlash is varied. (Glossy)

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

• Hoka looks to grow wholesale after fortifying DTC
• How retailers and credit card companies come up with rewards offers
• How AI-powered automation is transforming warehouse work