Totspot is growing as fast as a toddler outgrows his clothes—which is actually the problem Totspot aims to solve.
Totspot is a mobile-focused marketplace where parents can sell clothes their children have outgrown to other parents. More than 200,000 consumers have an account with Totspot. Since the marketplace’s inception in 2014, users have grown 30% to 35% month over month, says Totspot CEO Vijay Ramani.
95% of Totspot’s transactions are made via a mobile device, with the majority of these consumers using the retailer’s app, Ramani says.
Consumers have sold millions of dollars in clothing on Totspot, although Ramni declined to get more specific. Sellers receive 80% of the selling price and Totspot receives 20%.
Six months after launching, however, the company started to notice a group of “power sellers” who were listing hundreds of clothing articles each month and earning racking up much more in sales than the average Totspot seller. A typical Totspot seller is a mom who is purging several items her child has outgrown and may make a few hundred dollars in one month. The next month, however, the mom will have no inventory to sell so will make nothing that month, Ramani says. These such powers sellers, however, were bringing in $500-$800 at least every month and listing 200 to 300 clothing articles per month, he says.
Totspot reached out to the power sellers and learned that these were moms that were contacting women they knew and offering to sell their unneeded children’s clothing for them, then divvying up the profits.
After learning there are some women who don’t want to sell items themselves but were happy for someone else to do it for them, Totspot created its concierge service.
Totspot selected a group of 100 of the high-volume sellers to create the Totspot concierge service, based on how well they sell and their expertise in pricing items. Totspot vetted, recruited and trained the women via phone conversations.
A busy mom can now open the app and hit the concierge button. She tells the app how many items she wants to sell and the type of clothing. She then is paired with a concierge and Totspot will ship a bag to the busy mom. The mom will fill the bag with the clothes she wants to sell and ship it to the concierge. Totspot pays for all the shipping.
Once a clothing item sells, the power seller makes 40% of the selling price, and the rest of the 60% is divideed up between the original owner of the clothes and Totspot, with the split depending on the brand of the article of clothing. Moms receive more money if they choose to get their money in Totspot store credit, opposed to cash. For example, if a mom uses a power seller to sell her child’s high-end Janie and Jack dress, she will get 50% of the selling price back in store credit or 40% of the selling price in cash back. If the mom uses a power seller to sell her child’s Gymboree dress, she will receive 30% in Totspot credit or 20% in cash back.
The concierge service launched in the iOS app at the end of October and will be added to the Android app in a month, Ramani says.
The concierge service is only available in app. “Our focus is very app-centric,” Ramani says. Because moms need to take a picture of the clothing, Totspot is easiest to use on a smartphone, which is why the service is only available in app, he says.
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