Why Resale Is Retail’s Next Big Growth Engine | Trove CEO Terry Boyle at Shoptalk 2025

Hello, everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

And we are coming to you live once again From Shop Talk 2025 from the Avalara booth on the nicest dock in the bay and booth number 1554.

We are here all day interviewing the best of the best retail executives we can get our hands on.

And so I am proud to introduce our next guest, and that is Terry Boyle, the CEO of Trove.

Terry, welcome to omnitalk.

Happy first day of Shop Talk too.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

It's great.

Terry, you have a really interesting background that I think we need to share with our audience.

So let's start there and then tell our audience a little bit about what Trove is if they're not familiar yet.

Yeah, for sure.

So, yeah, my career started by basically helping put the infrastructure for the Internet in place, both for households and mobile.

I helped start the first 3G wireless company in the US that was pre iPhone and iOS.

And then I got into fashion tech in 2008.

The first company I did was a company called Hautelook.

We sold that to Nordstrom in 2011.

I was a Nordstrom exec for around 8 years.

Started Nordstromrack.com, paired that with Hautelook, kind of grew that to around 1.7 billion.

Nordstrom had also acquired Trunk Club during that time, so I ended up running that for a couple of years.

Left to do an AI machine learning startup.

Before it was cool, which was a problem, we were essentially trying to replace Trunk Club and Stitch fix with what now people would refer to as an AI stylist agent.

Okay, okay.

And then most recently before Trove, I was CEO of Zulily.

Okay, wow.

All right, that is a very awesome background.

All right, so let's talk about Trove then.

So what led you to Trove and what is Trove all about?

Yeah, so look, Trove is a company that provides brands and retailers the software and solutions they need to do resale and circular solutions.

So think trade in programs.

Think return processing for non new returns.

Think resale solutions that are integrated on their own websites.

That's what we do.

You know why I did it was, it was interesting.

I wasn't looking to do something like this, but I've known Andy, the original founder, for a long time and I was thinking about reselling goods on Zulily.

And so I had met with Andy recently and Andy had mentioned that they had kind of pivoted to be more of a software company.

And I was like, that's great, Andy.

That sounds really smart.

And then I didn't see him for a while.

When they called me, I was like, oh, I remember Andy talking about this.

I got super into it because it's really.

I'm a growth guy and these are growth solutions.

And I think most people don't realize that I'm also a P and L guy.

These are profitable solutions.

Right.

So this idea, as I saw it and kind of understood it, is like we can run these programs, both trade in, resale and return programs.

People can make money off of them and they can create this flywheel where they bring new customers in.

And so that was super exciting to me.

Got it.

So essentially you work with other retailers to help them get into resale, is that right?

I mean, mostly brands that's simplified.

Well, no, so it's mostly brands.

Some of our biggest brands would be like Patagonia, Arc'teryx, Brooks on running.

There's a lot.

Canada Goose.

There's a lot.

We have about 50 brands.

You'd know most of them.

And what we provide for them is essentially a series of solutions.

And they can be different.

Like not all solutions are the same.

And the core of it is like they may be processing returns and about 8 to 12% of returns are non new.

We can sell that directly on their own website.

And what we do is we condition grade everything, give it a single skew so it can be identified.

You have notes explaining the quality of the good.

You can also run trade in programs which are kind of my favorite.

Oh wow.

Trade in programs allow a customer to come in, turn something into a brand.

Usually for a gift card that sort of re engages that existing customer, turn something in, they get this gift card which they immediately spend on something new.

And then the brand gets a low cost basis on a good that they can sell to a new customer.

Resale customers tend to be between 50 and 80% new customers for brands.

So Terry, what are you looking at then?

At Shop Talk?

Like what are you here to.

Who are you here to talk to?

Like what technology is interesting to you as you think about kind of where Trove will evolve in the next year?

Yeah, I mean, I haven't been to Shop Talk in a while, so last time I was a member of Nordstrom, so I think like it has been a bit.

Oh wow.

It's been a while then?

It's been a while.

Yeah.

So it's been a couple years.

I just went back to NRF too.

So it's like I'm doing all the conferences.

I think we have a number of brands who are interested in solutions.

So we're doing a lot of direct meetings.

We don't have a booth this year.

We're kind of seeing if that makes sense in future years.

You know, I think what's interesting is resale isn't a category right now.

Like you don't, when you go down the shop talk agenda, you don't see resale as something that's called out.

We think that's going to change over the next couple of years.

And so, you know, we think this is going to take off in the next couple years.

But again, we're up to over 50 brands, so it's already really got some good traction.

Yeah, absolutely.

I know.

I'm a big fan.

I've been on the resale bandwagon for quite a long time, as Chris can attest.

Yeah, well, that was going to be my next question too is like, where are we on the adoption curve?

With resale, especially in our circles, it gets talked about a lot.

I'm personally of the opinion that we haven't quite crossed the chasm yet.

Maybe you disagree with me, but I'm curious, how would you assess where it is now and at what point do you think it will cross the chasm or has it already?

I think from a consumer standpoint, it's crossed the chasm.

Okay.

So I think particularly in Europe, it's crossed the chasm.

You're seeing keggers that are much higher than normal retail.

You're seeing some pretty big numbers being thrown down by some of these resale platforms.

I think the part of resale we're focused on is branded resale.

It's brands sort of doing it themselves.

And that is a little bit behind where consumer adoption is.

And that's our message to brand is consumers are already here.

They're already here.

Yeah, that's a great point.

And so like the way I view resale is it's essentially off price with a better brand halo.

You're hitting the same price points as off price.

You're drawing in that new customer, but your customer is going to give you credit for it instead of having it undermine sort of your sort of mainline promise.

Right.

And so that's what gets me excited is when I look out and we're a very mission driven company.

I can see that.

If we can replace 30 to 40% of off price with resale, both trade ins, returns and other, that's where the environmental savings are going to come from.

From my standpoint and that's exciting.

So.

So, Terry, I'm curious, given your experience doing this, what do you think?

What technologies do you think need to be improved to get people further along the lines?

And by people, I should say brands and retailers more comfortable since the customer's already there.

For example, something that comes to mind is visual search technology.

Is that something that will help brands cut down the processing time of getting resale up and running, or is there something else like that that you think needs to happen before more brands will adapt it?

So the problem you're talking about, by the way, is a problem for the large platforms is they have a lot of stuff, they don't know what it is you have to do.

Visual search, we're doing branded resale.

So the catalogs are much smaller.

We actually identify that product with a really high rate.

And we're using AI now to fill in the gaps of when something doesn't come in with the label or it's not fully identified, we can then do a visual match against their catalog, which is a much smaller closed data set.

And then in the case where they don't have a catalog going back 20 years, then we can fill in the gaps with sort of this visual search.

But that's not our core problem, to be honest.

Our core problem with acceptance is just brands realizing that they can and should do this.

This isn't like something that is like just for the environment, it's actually for their business.

The customers are expecting it.

It's going to help them grow their business, going to help them be profitable.

What gets them over the hurdle, A lot of meetings.

To be honest, this is not a case where we're starting to see it more, where like people come out with RFPs.

They know they want to do this.

Yeah, that's very exciting.

But historically this business has been sort of hand to hand combat.

A lot of education, a lot of consultation, a lot of solutions that are sort of the same but a little bit different.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we are seeing faster deal times, but you will have clients that you're talking to for over a year for sure.

Wow.

Jerry, one thing I want to ask you too is like, you know, as we follow the space, there's been, you know, there's a lot, like you said, there's a, you have a lot of solutions, lot of ways to approach it.

You could be a brand, you could create a standalone site experience for this.

You could integrate it within your own site experience.

Is there a right or a wrong way to do it?

Are there Multiple options for how do you do it?

How do you think through all that as you're talking to these retailers and having all these meetings with them?

Yeah, I think our point of view is it's okay to have an evolutionary path.

And I think to me that the evolution ends with integrating it into your full price site in some way so that customers can have a shared card and shared checkout.

I do.

And we're seeing that in the market.

That's kind of our take too.

Yeah, the most aggressive brands are doing that, but that doesn't mean you have to.

And those integrations, if you're on Shopify, they're easier.

If you're not, they can be a little harder, but not that hard.

But usually it requires integration with the WMS and the erp and so maybe you don't want to do that.

We have plenty of other solutions where you really don't have to do anything.

Right.

But what I can tell you is when you do a full integration, you could be looking at 3 to 5% of your business coming from resale pretty easily.

Wow.

Wow.

That's a pretty startling number.

Wow, that's.

It seems like a no brainer to me then if you got that type of business coming, that's instant comp then in a lot of ways.

Right?

That's how I think of it.

It's like basically for people that have been struggling to sort of find comp points.

Right.

Like this is sort of a free five or three, like if you really want to go out and certainly a free one.

Right.

So there's no reason not to do it.

Your customers want it again, you're getting new customers because you're hitting a new price point.

There's not a lot of cannibalization.

I don't see a lot of reason not to do it.

Are there any watch outs though?

Like if we get down to brass tacks, any watch outs if we're being pragmatic for those retail executives watching, like, is there anything they do need to be thinking about though if they're gonna do it?

Right?

Yeah, I think you have to be plugged into your economics.

Right.

So for example, like gift card value management becomes a bit of a science.

Right.

It's like if you're doing a trade in program and you take something back and it's a C or D grade or maybe actually goes to recycle, you have to, you know, if you want to be really running the economics tight, then you have to give a different gift card amount for something that comes in that can be sold as sort of a grade.

Right.

Not everybody wants to do that.

And so if you don't want to do that, how do you kind of manage your economics?

We have all these different levers to do it, but that's like the sort of more advanced math that you end up starting doing, so.

Got it.

So, like most things in business, it's not a free lunch, but it's a lunch you can have if you're smart about how you deploy.

Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's basically, you can make your own lunch and you can decide how.

How much money you're going to make selling your lunch.

Right.

That's a bad metaphor.

But, like, no, it's terrible metaphor.

My bad, too.

So no, like, but, but.

So you're in control.

And so if you want to really push the economics and have a smaller program, for example, you can do that if you want to have a really large program.

Like some.

Some of our brands really value explicitly the value that those gift cards generate, which is true, by the way.

It generates tremendous value.

Some clients don't value that as much.

Right.

So then they got to run the rest of the program tighter.

Interesting.

Well, this was fascinating.

I know.

Thank you so much for doing this, too.

Those watching.

I just.

I messaged Terry a few weeks ago and I was like, hey, you want to come by, stop by, do an interview with us?

He's like, yeah, sure.

And so he did.

He flew from LA this morning.

Right?

Is that right?

Yep.

And so he just came here and first.

First stop on his trip to Shop Talk.

So thanks again.

Thanks again for joining us.

Thanks to Avalara for supporting our content here at the show.

Again, stop by booth 1554.

We'll be here all day.

And until next time, Anne, be careful out there.