SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which are statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “shall,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K include, but are not limited to, statements about:
•our future financial performance, including our revenue, cost of revenue and operating expenses and our ability to achieve and maintain future profitability;
•the sufficiency of our cash, cash equivalents and capital resources to meet our liquidity needs;
•our ability to effectively manage or sustain our growth and to effectively expand our operations;
•our strategies, plans, objectives and goals, including our expectations regarding future infrastructure investments;
•our ability to attract and retain buyers and sellers and the continued impact of network effects as we scale our platform;
•our ability to continue to generate revenue from new Resale-as-a-Service (“RaaS”) offerings that are our future sources of revenue;
•trends in our key financial and operating metrics;
•our estimated market opportunity;
•economic and industry trends, projected growth or trend analysis;
•our ability to comply with laws and regulations;
•the effect of uncertainties related to the global COVID-19 pandemic, including as a result of the recent Omicron variant and any new strains or variants of the virus, and recovery therefrom on United States and global economies, our business, results of operations, financial condition, demand for secondhand and resale items, sales cycles and buyer and seller retention;
•our ability to remediate our material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting;
•our ability to successfully integrate and realize the benefits of our past or future strategic acquisitions or investments; and
•the increased expenses associated with being a public company.
You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors described in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The results, events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur, and actual results, events or circumstances could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.
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Unless otherwise indicated or unless the context requires otherwise, all references in this document to “thredUP”, “the Company”, “we”, “us”, “our”, or similar references are to ThredUp Inc.
thredUP is one of the world’s largest online resale platforms for women’s and kids’ apparel, shoes and accessories, based primarily on items processed, items sold and the capacity of our distribution centers.
The “estimated retail price” of an item is based on the estimated original retail price of a comparable item of the same quality, construction and material offered elsewhere in new condition. Our estimated original retail prices are set by our team of merchants who periodically monitor market prices for the brands and styles that we offer on our marketplace.
Part 1
Item 1. Business.
thredUP is one of the world’s largest online resale platforms for women’s and kids’ apparel, shoes and accessories. Our mission is to inspire a new generation of consumers to think secondhand first. We believe in a sustainable fashion future and we are proud that our business model creates a positive impact to the benefit of our buyers, sellers, clients, employees, investors and the environment. Our custom-built operating platform consists of distributed processing infrastructure, proprietary software and systems and data science expertise. This platform is powering the rapidly emerging resale economy, one of the fastest growing sectors in retail, according to a GlobalData market survey conducted in April 2021.
thredUP’s proprietary operating platform is the foundation for our managed marketplace, where we have bridged online and offline technology to make the buying and selling of tens of millions of unique items easy and fun. The marketplace we have built enables buyers to browse and purchase resale items for primarily women’s and kids’ apparel, shoes and accessories across a wide range of price points. Buyers love shopping value, premium and luxury brands all in one place, at up to 90% off estimated retail price. Sellers love thredUP because we make it easy to clean out their closets and unlock value for themselves or for the charity of their choice while doing good for the planet. thredUP’s sellers order a Clean Out Kit, fill it and return it to us using our prepaid label. We take it from there and do the work to make those items available for resale.
In 2018, based on our success with consumers directly, we extended our platform to enable brands and retailers to participate in the resale economy. A number of the world’s leading brands and retailers are already taking advantage of our Resale-as-a-Service (“RaaS”) offering, which allows them to conveniently offer a scalable closet clean out service and/or resale shop to their customers. We believe RaaS will accelerate the growth of this emerging category and form the backbone of the modern resale experience domestically and internationally.
In October 2021, we closed the acquisition of Remix Global AD (“Remix”), a fashion resale company headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, which further expands our reach to the European customer. With this acquisition, we added a complementary operational infrastructure and an experienced management team to enable our expansion into Europe. In addition, Remix’s product assortment extends our resale offering to include men’s items and items sourced from a variety of supply channels, such as wholesale supply.
We have built a differentiated and defensible operating platform to enable resale at scale, combining:
•Distributed Processing Infrastructure. Our infrastructure is purpose-built for “single SKU” logistics, meaning that every item processed is unique, came from or belongs to an individual seller and is individually tracked using its own stock keeping unit (“SKU”). We believe logistics and infrastructure have never been executed at our scale in the online resale market. As of December 31, 2021, we operated distribution centers that could collectively hold more than 7.3 million items in locations across the United States and Europe. Our operations are highly scalable, and we have the ability to process more than 100,000 unique SKUs per day across our existing distribution footprint. We drive continuous operational efficiency through proprietary technology and ongoing automation of our infrastructure. Our existing United States based distribution centers are located in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. In 2022, we anticipate opening another distribution center in Texas and have opened two smaller processing centers in Texas and Tennessee. By locating our facilities in strategic locations across the country we can be closer to our buyers and sellers, which allows us to reduce shipping times in transit, and lower our inbound and outbound shipping costs. Our European-based distribution center, which services nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe, is located in Sofia, Bulgaria.
•Proprietary Software and Systems. Our facilities run on a suite of our custom-built applications designed for “single SKU” operations. Our engineering team has implemented large-scale, innovative and patented automation for put-away, storage, picking and packing at scale. This automation results in reduced labor and fixed costs while increasing storage density and throughput capacity. Our proprietary software, systems and processes enable efficient quality assurance, item-attribution, sizing and photography.
•Data Science Expertise. We harness our robust, structured data set across our business to optimize economic decisions, such as pricing, seller payouts, item acceptance, merchandising and sell-through. We also leverage data to power efficient customer acquisition and lifetime engagement, and to provide a personalized shopping experience.
We generate revenue primarily from items that are sold to buyers on our websites and mobile app and from integration and service fees charged in connection with our RaaS offerings.
In 2019, we shifted to primarily consignment sales. With consignment sales, we recognize revenue net of seller payouts, and cost of revenue includes outbound shipping, outbound labor and packaging costs. With direct product sales, we recognize revenue on a gross basis, and cost of revenue mainly includes inventory cost, inbound shipping and inventory write-downs, as well as outbound shipping, outbound labor and packaging costs. Our buyers generally pay us upfront when they purchase an item.
We recognize revenue from our Remix platform primarily through direct product sales. We anticipate that over time revenue from the Remix platform will migrate to become primarily consignment sales as we introduce and expand the Clean Out Kit model that we pioneered in the United States market.
In mid-2021, we began structuring our RaaS offerings as sources of revenue. RaaS clients typically pay an upfront integration fee as well as ongoing service fees which are then recorded to consignment revenue. With RaaS, brands and retailers are leveraging our operating platform to deliver resale experiences to their customers across three main service modules: our Clean Out service, our cashout marketplace, and our full-service resale shops. This suite of offerings is called “Resale 360” and enables our RaaS clients to drive incremental revenue and access new customers while promoting a circular business model. As of December 31, 2021, we worked with 28 RaaS clients, including Adidas, Crocs, GAP, Madewell, Reformation and Walmart.
We have methodically scaled operating capacity and revenue, while increasing gross profit and improving our operating performance.
•As of December 31, 2021, we had 1.69 million Active Buyers, up 36% over December 31, 2020.
• In the year ended December 31, 2021, our buyers placed 5.3 million Orders, up 34% over December 31, 2020.
Human Capital Resources
As of December 31, 2021, we had 2,894 employees and professional contractors, including 2,496 distribution center employees. To our knowledge, none of our employees is represented by a labor union or covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages and we consider our relations with our employees to be good. We supplement our workforce with contractors and consultants in the United States and internationally, including Ukrainian information technology, or IT, specialists. These Ukrainian IT specialists, who provide services on our behalf, are registered as “private entrepreneurs” with the tax authorities of Ukraine and operate as independent contractors. While we do not anticipate a reduction in force due to conflict in Ukraine, we anticipate that at least some of our Ukrainian IT specialists may be unable to work while the conflict is unresolved.