Our Frontlines in America (FIA) team was humbled by the opportunity to serve Homeboy Threads (HBT) in its goal of offering reuse and recycling services for apparel and textiles. We believe in Homeboy's mission of providing training and jobs for people committed to transforming their lives after and gang involvement or incarceration. HBT's work to create sustainable jobs and reducing textile waste in landfills is inspiring.
Following the 2023 assessment by a previous FIA team of the circular apparel industry and Threads’ overall positioning, our team's analysis this year’s focused on the following areas specific to the organization’s resale strategy:
1. Analysis of top apparel resale platforms and Homeboy Threads’ ecommerce site.
2. Marketing and e-commerce best practices for increasing sell-through rates.
3. Marketing ideas, analysis of current brand perception, and ideas to drive sales.
4. Recommendations to compete successfully in the resale fashion market.
With the overarching goal of growing monthly revenues from $7,600 (250 articles) to $50,000 (1,600 articles), the FIA team organized recommendations into three key focus areas: Customer Journey, Product Journey, and Long-Term Opportunities.
Customer Journey: The FIA team recommends that HBT optimize its website to help populate the e-commerce site higher in organic search results. There are also opportunities to optimize the functionality of the website by listing sold-out items last, improve photography, providing accurate item descriptions and measurements, and implementing a clear and simple return policy. To facilitate sales conversions while maximizing margin, we suggest initially pricing items at 40% of retail value with a 10% monthly discount on unsold items. Additionally, we recommend leveraging Homeboy Electronics Recycling’s existing relationship with FedEx to secure lower shipping rates.
Product Journey: The team advises HBT reference Tersus Solutions as a benchmark for warehousing best practices. To reduce management intervention on sorting, HBT should display examples for each category. And to optimize data management, HBT should expand tagging capabilities and tracking KPIs through SellerCloud.
Long-Term Opportunities: We see an opportunity for HBT to expand from occasional pop-ups at their warehouse to a brick-and-mortar presence. For a feasible brick-and-mortar strategy, we estimate that HBT would need to achieve the following annual revenue targets: $2,700 for a 20 square foot sublet, $171,000 for a pilot store, and $300,000 for a fully-owned store on Melrose.