Connie Berardinelli majored in entrepreneurship at Harbert. Her minor in sustainability studies gave her an educational combination that blends well with her work at Trove. The San Francisco-based company offers retail brands such as REI and Patagonia a system for taking back and reselling items previously purchased from them, allowing them to retain customer contact with the brand while reducing the use of materials required to produce new items.
As she explains, this circular shopping approach not only benefits consumers and retailers, but also has significant benefit for the environment.
Connie Berardinelli majored in entrepreneurship at Harbert. Her minor in sustainability studies gave her an educational combination that blends well with her work at Trove. The San Francisco-based company offers retail brands such as REI and Patagonia a system for taking back and reselling items previously purchased from them, allowing them to retain customer contact with the brand while reducing the use of materials required to produce new items.
As she explains, this circular shopping approach not only benefits consumers and retailers, but also has significant benefit for the environment.
Narrator:
Welcome to the Harbert College of Business podcast.
Sarah Gascon:
War Eagle. I'm Dr. Sarah Gascon.
Currie Dyess:
And I'm Curry Dyess. Welcome to another episode of the Harbert College of Business podcast. Today's guest is Ms. Connie Berardinelli. Connie helps lead the business development team at Trove prior to Trove, Connie worked in merchandising, design, and sourcing at Williams, Sonoma and Belk.
Sarah:
In today's episode, we will discuss circular shopping versus traditional retail shopping and how circular shopping helps to improve our economy and environment. Connie, welcome to the show, war Eagle.
Connie Berardinelli:
Hi, War Eagle guys? Thanks for including me.
Currie:
The purpose of Trove is circular shopping. Can you please share with our listeners what that means, and how does this differ from traditional retail shopping?
Connie:
Why Trove is built and founded is to keep items in use for longer, and to make sure that items get into the next best use in a proper way that's good for the environment. Circular shopping solves two big problems in the fashion retail industry. One being over-consumption and the second being overproduction. The idea of circular shopping is first when you need something, you really think about what it is and what's the purpose of it. So, if I'm going on a ski trip and I want a new jacket, why do I want that new jacket? Is it because I want a different color jacket, and I'm tired of the jacket I wore last year? Or is it because I don't have a jacket, and I've never skied in Jackson Hole before? First identifying the intention of that, and then thinking through how you're going to buy it.
If I'm going to buy something new, I'm going to think through can I buy that used first instead of promoting over consumption? And if it's something that I want to buy the newest color, I'm going to go in my closet and I'm going to see if I already have it. I'm going to trade it in to then buy that new item. So it's just solving a lot of philosophical questions of why are we buying things? Where are they going, and how can I get something in the most sustainable way possible? And I think the second piece of that is after that season, after I'm done skiing and I'm done using that jacket, I'm going to go ahead and trade that item in. So someone else next year can purchase it. So I think it's just really pushing on the ideas of keeping items in use for longer in that circular economy.
Currie:
How do you target customers who are not necessarily sustainably minded? What does that customer look like?
Connie:
I think that the industry is changing. So all customers are at least considering where are we buying? What are we buying? And how long has that item going to last? So I think in terms of targeting the customer, it's more so targeting the brand to tap into their own network, to get their customer, to think differently, to purchase differently and to re-engage with the brand under a trusted resource.
Currie:
It makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Sarah:
So what inspired you to join the Trove team?
Connie:
I think what inspired me to join the Trove team is the economics of it make a lot of sense, and I really want to try and destruct the retail and fashion industry to help save the planet. I grew up in stores. So I've been working in retail since I was 16. And I think seeing what I've seen and understanding how things get made, Trove really empowers brands to own the space and own the customer. And also gives the brands, sourcing and designs team, a little bit of breathing room in terms of taking a little bit more time to create a beautiful product that's going to last a really long time and have many, many uses out of it. And I think what I liked about Trove the most is it started as a very small company, but it was very nimble. And the differences of minds that I get to work with every day is super inspiring. And we get to work with incredible brands who have a shared philosophical alignment with what we're trying to do.
Sarah:
That's awesome. Do you believe your experiences here at Auburn prepared you for your current position? And if so, how?
Connie:
I absolutely think that they did. I majored in entrepreneurship after trying a few different majors on at Auburn. But I landed in entrepreneurship because it felt to be the most creative business major that I could get my hands on. Where I could grow into a really strong financial background, a really strong business acumen. Where I can speak the language and understand the data behind what we're doing. And I think anytime that you're trying to sell something new, that's truly a new business model, not necessarily a new product line, you really have to understand the metrics behind it. And Auburn absolutely prepared that for me, specifically within the strategic planning and that my capstone classes.
I still draw back on that like understanding all the different pieces of the puzzle, and a lot of the books that I read in my entrepreneurship classes, specifically The Lean Startup. I re-read when I joined a startup and it was really relevant. And I think where Auburn was also unique is my sustainability minor. Where I learned a lot about regenerative agriculture and the circular economy and sustainability in general and how that all these different pieces of the planet come together. And I could really make an impact specifically in fashion and retail. The blend of a sustainability minor in my college of business major really helped me think through things a bit differently. Being able to exercise both sides of my brain.
Sarah:
And so back to Trove, how does the circular shopping, how does that improve both the environment and the economy?
Connie:
From an economic standpoint, it allows people to purchase smarter and purchase better quality items that they may have not been able to afford. If you're thinking of a brand like Arc'teryx, they're super expensive jackets, however they last forever. So I think being able to enter that price point at something that you may not be able to afford at a lower value because it has been pre-worn, but it's just, it's still an incredible product. Really like allows for people to purchase better and smarter and just keep it in use for longer. And I think in terms of how it's changing the economy overall, as it's also allowing brands to have a new business where they're making money and their P and L is positive, and it is a new business and people still are shopping, but they're shopping smarter. And then that money and that cost savings eases the pressure on their production and their design departments to think about how they're sourcing the items.
Where is that jacket coming from? Where are the materials coming from? Who's making it, and you can even trace it back to where the fabric has grown. So I think that if you think about truly the circular economy, it touches all pieces of that. And it just kind of eases up that tension where brands are making better products that last longer, and customers are responding to that. And also customers are able to trade in their items for credit. So I think in general, with Trove, we work with brands to keep it within the brand, but in the competitive space, like a thread up or even a thrift store in your local neighborhood, you can trade in items that you can either get cash back or a gift card or something like that. So it's still kind of monetizing that transaction.
Currie:
You touched on this a little bit already, but I just want to take it back. Maybe you can unpack it a little bit more. Who is your target customer? Or like what's, what's the persona?
Connie:
Working in business development, my customer is the brand. So I work with the brands. So then my end customer is who's shopping that brand. So when I worked with Levi's in my brain, I worked for Trove, but I worked for Levi's and I got to know their product. I got to know their customer, and I would work with them to build a strategy on what they're trying to achieve. Like, are they targeting or any brand, are they trying to target Gen Z or a younger customer who may not be able to afford an expensive jacket? Maybe that's their customer. Are they trying to re-engage with someone who has hundreds of jackets in their closet and they want to just buy a whole new wardrobe. Right. So I think that when I think about the customer, I think about the brand that I'm working for and what the strategy is that we co-develop how Trove's technology and end-to-end logistics and consultative professional services can help support that.
So they're a customer who they want is meeting their KPIs. So it's a bit complicated. And if you think about profiles in the market, luxury customers, so luxury brands are going to be very different than the Patagonia's of the world etc. Just based on price point, who's shopping, things like that. However, at the end of the day, the industry and the customers, people like you and I who are shopping, are paying attention and they're paying attention to what brands are doing. They're paying attention to where the things come from, and they're already kind of second guessing and questioning what, what they're buying and like, where did it come from and where we are trying to push the industry forward is then what's its next, next end of life option, right? What's going to happen to it afterwards. What happens to those items that get returned that have makeup on them and they can't, a brand can't sell it. So I think when I think about the customer, it would be two profiles and then segmented out based on the market and also what they're trying to achieve.
Currie:
So what are some of the challenges that you're currently experiencing with this method of customer behavior?
Connie:
I think at a macro sense, we're experiencing a lot less than we did a year and a half ago. And I think when we started talking about circularity, when I joined Trove and even when I was 21 or younger at Auburn talking about sustainability, it was kind more theoretical and philosophical where sustainability, it's this fun, sexy idea, but it wasn't like a business. And I think now brands are waking up where it's not necessarily, Oh, that's like an interesting idea. I wonder what we could do with trade-in like that's cool. Now it's I committed to my board within five years, I'm going to take back 20% of the items that I produce every year. Right. So I think that the challenges that we're having is keeping up with the demand, which is a great problem to have and just meeting the industry with where it is as well.
And making sure that our technology RUX, RUI, our operations is up to par with the industry standard. And I think due to COVID, if you look at e-commerce overall, we've all had to pivot a lot. And I think customers like the chopper and the person trading the items in expects a different level of service and a different level of engagement with the brands that they shop with and they interact with. Everything from visiting the homepage on the website to customer service, to the packaging. So I think all of those little little details add up and that's where we at Trove, are a huge asset to these brands because we have an incredibly high level of service that they trust us with. So I think keeping up with the industry specifically e-commerce and just relating to customers will always be a challenge. However, we're providing a solution that makes it a lot easier.
I think if you think about retail in general, engagement and retention are two really tough things right now, right? How do you get the customer back into your brand? If I bought a pair of leggings at REI last year, maybe I'm not shopping at REI this year. How do they get me back? You know? So, I think that Trove provides a service and a full suite of offerings to kind of just have something new to talk about, right? When you're in a store, checking out it's not a 20% off promotion, or it's not a free shipping on Friday to Monday due to a holiday. It's hey, what are you, why are you buying this? What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it afterwards? Next season, did you know, you can trade it in? Did you know that you can get a credit back to buy something new, and someone else can buy this from you. So I think that we're helping solve a lot of the challenges that retail and fashion just brands in general are struggling with.
Currie:
I think maybe those challenges are not necessarily widely known. I had no idea. I don't think either one of us really did. I mean, and Connie, you have really impressive partnerships with brands, such as Levi's, REI, and Patagonia. Why don't these companies just do this themselves?
Connie:
Well Thank You, so I think that investment is a big part of it and economics. I think that investment in scale is where we help and also data. And to make a single, when you work in retail, you typically buy a blue shirt and you buy 6,000 units of that blue shirt. And when you analyze it, you see what was the sell through? On that blue shirt? Right? Simple blue shirt did well. Maybe we'll run it again next year. In single SKU and recommerce, when you're selling that blue shirt can be lightly worn, that blue shirt may have a nick in the hem. That same blue shirt, same SKU may have coffee on the sleeve. We provide the data and the structure and the operational operations to identify every single variation of that blue SKU. So you can, or that blue shirts, you can analyze it.
And I think that the investment that brands would have to do to put, to do it themselves is so high and resourcing to make this work is a lot. And we provide such end to end services where it makes it easier where it's a lift up front to get the business going and to think about it creatively, right? Like how does this fit within the brand? But then we do all the heavy lifting for the brands. And I think from a data perspective, it's really hard to figure out how to make an item sellable, right. And how to condition rate that and how to do it at scale. I think any brand can probably spin up a take back program, but how are you? Who is the customer? How are you going to measure that? Where's the data? Are they re-engaging with the brand?
What type of our cotton shirts lasting longer than Gore-Tex fabric? Probably not. But things like that, we provide on a full set of suite of analytics dashboards to kind of gauge that in an operations facility at scale, where we can make, we make hundreds of thousands of items sellable every day. So I think that's the challenge. And also it's really hard, right? It's a new business. It's not a collaboration where they're collaborating with us. They're collaborating with us intellectually, however, it's their brand.
And I think that figuring out these complicated problems is where we are huge value at because we're also always thinking about how to measure it. And how to scale, because that's like the ultimate goal, right? Is we want to see a world where brands are producing smarter products that are lasting longer and paying their people in sourcing more effectively because they have this other re circular economy kind of regenerative business model that's taking that pressure off like their main line margin targets and things like that. And there's also a huge capitol investment. That's why we're a startup that's growing very fast because it is, it's a massive investment to do to take in house.
Currie:
Yeah, absolutely. Can you explain the Trove customer experience and the processes from start to finish and how that differs from the brand experience?
Connie:
Yeah. So that's a good question. And where the Trove customer experience is the brand experience. So they use our platform. So Trove is, there's kind of three different arms of what we do, right? We have software that enables to take back. So, and in-store trade in, that's our software. Mail and trade-in, that's our backend. The recommerce websites that we host, we handle all of that as well as the data and analytics portion, as well as end to end operations.
So we have a full operations facility where I go into a Levi's store and trade in a pair of jeans. It comes to Trove and we clean it and we repair it. We photograph it, we post it back online and then Sarah, you could buy it. And then it's shipped out all under the Levi's name. We're totally white label. So what the brands want to do within reason, we cater to that to make sure that it is a fully white label service. And I think what's interesting is we get a lot of feedback in the market saying, Oh, we had to find you, it was hard to find brands have trouble finding us because it is so seamless. And it is, it truly feels like that brand.
And in terms of how we treat our, we call them partners. So when, how we treat our brands, it's a joint venture, right? We want to build the business together. And we want to kind of leverage both industry expertise, as well as research to kind of push these brands forward to scale. To ultimately have a more responsible to just push and drive a more responsible society when it comes to fashion and retail and consumption.
Currie:
Connie, your energy is infectious.
Connie:
Oh, Thank you.
Currie:
Trove is it's like a rocket ship just getting off the ground. What are the next steps? What are the next steps for you and for Trove as you continue to grow?
Connie:
It's been a wild year and a half. And again, I think a year and a half ago, I probably would have had a very different answer than what I have right now. So I've been all around the company and I really like working in business development. So I think for us, it's building best in class, take back technology because we want to make sure that customers of all of our brands have seamless experiences when they want to trade an item in. It should be so easy. And I think that's something that we're really, really trying to work hard on. As well as just having best marketing practices that we can share, best data customer profiles. Now that the industry is showing up and we have a more diverse portfolio of brands that we're constantly adding to, understanding who that shopper is, right?
Who's trading in, what are they like? Where do they live? And then who shopping resale? Because there is some overlap. But, typically what we've seen so far is the customer who trades items in across the brand is typically buying new. And then someone who is buying used, typically may hold onto that item longer. So, I think within five years we can really prove out these concepts that we think with data and with partnerships, with our brands. I think from a growth perspective, we want to be in every industry, right? Like we're really penetrated outdoor, which is awesome. I love our outdoor partners, but I think that there's a lot to learn, a lot to destruct, and a lot to push forward in the luxury space and in contemporary fashion. And it's scary. Like it's scary for these brands and that's where we add a lot of value because they trust us.
And my team and my boss, my boss came from REI and led the e-commerce business at REI for a while. So I think we talk about it a lot, kind of what, how do we make them, how do we make the brands trust us? How do we set them up for success? So we have multi-year contracts. Like we want multi-year partners. We don't want pilots where, I mean, we want pilots, but we want pilots that are going to scale and that are going to be viable and that we both can learn from that will ultimately help the planet overall.
Sarah:
Well, based off of all your experience, both from an education standpoint and a real life working experience, do you have any advice for our listeners based off of your overall understanding of how the world works?
Connie:
Oh, wow. I mean it's been a long time since I've worked at Moe's in Auburn, Alabama, but I would say I just work really hard. I don't know? I think once someone told me, you should always be trying to be the best at whatever you do. Whether that's pouring beer at Moe's on game day where you're sweating and everyone is really stressed out or it's really crowded. It's the same thing being in a room. I've had to grow a lot with the rooms that I'm in. And I think I still treat the junior "junior level person" the same way that I'm going to treat someone who's in the C-suite. And I think not letting that, the size of the room or who's in the room intimidate you. Something that I really had to work hard on and making sure that you're treating everyone with the same level of respect regardless of their title and what they do.
Cause like everyone's just trying to figure it out. And I think not to undervalue education and learning and reading a lot. I wish I read more, but I think that that's and just being curious, I think that's what led me to Trove and led me to Williams-Sonoma, led me to entrepreneurship, led me to a lot of things, volunteering. I've done a lot of volunteer work too. And just being curious and following that and figuring out like how you can make a career out of being curious is my advice. And also, taking risks and not being like freaked out if you are bad at them. I'm bad at a lot of stuff. I'm not, yeah.
Sarah:
That's probably really refreshing for some, especially some of our undergraduate students to hear as they were going through this, the issues of the pandemic and not really knowing what tomorrow brings.
Connie:
Yeah. And also like your first jobs, not your last job too. I was talking to my little, actually about this two weeks ago because she's been in her job for a couple of years now. I'm like, you don't have to stay, you can always quit. And I think that that's something that we, I had to remind myself sometimes that, you don't have to sing something if you're unhappy, and you can just have a lot of jobs, and it's not a bad thing to do that. Not too many, but like jobs with intention, I think too is important.
Currie:
Awesome. Well, Connie, it has been an absolute pleasure and you, you're a true example of what a Harbert College of Business graduate should look like and sound like. So thank you so much.
Connie:
Oh thank you.
Currie:
It's been really great.
Sarah:
How can our listeners get in contact with you?
Connie:
Probably LinkedIn, I would say is the best way. Yeah. And follow if they're interested in Trove, definitely follow our careers site on LinkedIn. We're posting a lot. Our marketing department puts a lot of effort into posting, a lot of articles about just the space in general, circularity, trade in, and also just sustainability initiatives overall. It's not just in retail and fashion, farming, agriculture. It's everywhere. So yeah, I'd say probably LinkedIn's the best place.
Sarah:
Awesome.
Currie:
Thank you so much.
Sarah:
Connie. Thank you for your time. War Eagle.
Currie:
Yeah, thanks so much. Okay, War Eagle.
Narrator:
Harbert, Inspiring Business.