French resale platform Place2Swap raises €750,000
Place2Swap, the French white-label C2C resale platform, offering tools to support brands and retailers in the second-hand market, has announced it raised €750,000 to fund an acceleration in its expansion. Place2Swap is active in Europe in the fashion, sport, childcare and DIY products sectors.
Place2Swap was founded in 2016 by Estefania Larranaga and Lucie Soulard, both former marketing executives at major groups. Its mission is to support consumer product brands and retail chains as they integrate second-hand sales into their business model. The platform is based on the principle that buyers must go to a retailer's store to pick up the goods they purchased, generating in-store traffic that can then lead to sales of in-season products. Place2Swap also offers tools to optimise returns management and deal with unsold inventory, whose destruction will soon be prohibited.
“[Through this funding round] we are reaffirming our intention of positioning [Place2Swap] as a major player in the circular economy for modern brands and retailers, both in France and internationally,” stated the start-up. Place2Swap also announced it is set to double its staff by hiring eight new employees, that it will be deployed by five new brands and will soon sign up another 10, and that it will exhibit at the US National Retail Federation trade show in New York, from January 11 to 14.
Among the business angels on Place2Swap's management committee, there are Stanislas de Quercize, a former director at Richemont France, Cartier International and Van Cleef & Arpels International; Coralie de Fontenay, former general manager of Cartier France; retail specialist and entrepreneur Catherine Barba; and Elisabeth Laville, founder of Utopies, a think tank focusing on CSR policies.
Place2Swap is currently collaborating with five clients, among them the Galeries Lafayette department store group, with which it developed an initiative called Le Good Dressing last year, and French apparel retailer Camaïeu, for which it developed the Camaïeu & Cie resale site in 2018.
In 2019, the second-hand fashion market in France topped the €1 billion mark. According to a survey by the French Fashion Institute, almost two out of five French consumers have bought second-hand apparel or accessories in 2019, and 48% of them intend to buy more of these in 2020.
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