ThredUp is expanding into live shopping on Whatnot, a live commerce platform in the U.S., UK, and Europe. The online resale platform said will launch live shows directly from its distribution centers in Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, September 29.
“This represents ThredUp’s official foray into live commerce,” the company said in a media release. “The live shopping market has reached an estimated $22 billion across North America and Europe*, with fashion being Whatnot’s largest category by order volume. This launch brings ThredUp’s millions of unique secondhand fashion SKUs and purpose-built resale infrastructure to Whatnot’s community-driven marketplace.”
ThredUp will increase live show frequency over time and said it intends to grow into a trusted destination for secondhand fashion on Whatnot.
“Buyers who shop with ThredUp on Whatnot will have instant access to millions of unique and curated secondhand garments across value, contemporary, and luxury brands directly from ThredUp’s distribution centers,” the company added.
Beyond the Whatnot channel launch, ThredUp said it is exploring additional ways to empower Whatnot’s seller community with its proprietary resale technology. Areas of focus reportedly include providing access to ThredUp’s inventory directly to Whatnot fashion sellers, equipping them with data-driven curation tools to build selections tailored to their audiences, and using ThredUp’s logistics infrastructure to make receiving that inventory seamless.
“Live shopping is one of the most dynamic channels in retail today, and we’re excited to expand into this opportunity on Whatnot,” commented James Reinhart, CEO, ThredUp. “With fashion as one of Whatnot’s largest categories, and with a highly engaged community of buyers, we see this as an incredible opportunity to meet the next generation of secondhand shoppers where they are.”
Reinhart said the launch is also just the beginning of what the two companies can do together as they explore the “endless possibilities” for how their combined technologies can further support existing Whatnot sellers grow their businesses.
The new partnership with Whatnot was just one a number of highlights that came to light at the company’s presentation at the Wells Fargo 9th Annual Consumer Conference on Monday, September 28.
ThredUp is coming off a strong Q2 report, delivering a record quarter across all key dimensions: buyers, sellers, orders, and revenue.
“I think it was the result of six plus quarters of record new buyer growth,” Reinhart noted. “We had been very successful acquiring new buyers, turning them into repeat buyers, and a lot of that was going well. All the work that we did on improving the customer experience, conversion rates were strong, prices were strong. There was a number of things, I think, that were all going quite well in Q2. It was also the seventh quarter for us of record top line and expanding EBITDA, right? Generating free cash flow. In general, Q2 was strong across the board.”
ThredUp said its business has changed dramatically since the end of 2024 when the company divested its European Remix business after acquiring it at the end of 2021.
“So in Q4, for those of you who haven’t followed it over the last few years, when we went public in 2021, at the end of 2021, we bought a business in Europe, end of 2021, called Remix,” Reinhart explained. “We’d owned that business for a number of years, but in 2022, when interest rates and inflation went up in the U.S., it was equally bad or worse in Europe. So, our Remix business really struggled. So we tried to turn that business around over a couple of years. The net of it was that our U.S. business was actually reasonably healthy during that period, but it had to effectively cover up the challenges we were having in Europe.”
The CEO said that divesting the Remix business was really the turning point for the company.
“I think that was really the turning point where it was like, okay, the business was simpler, we were U.S. only,” Reinhart commented. “We could turn all of our investments, our best people back to the U.S. So beginning in Q4 of 2024, you saw the business just rapidly accelerate growth.”
That is when ThredUp saw sales jump in double digits, hitting +10 percent, then +12 percent, and then to +16 percent in sequential periods.
The divestiture also helped push the company from a period of negative EBITDA and negative free cash flow to positive cash generation.
Still, it wasn’t all hearts and flowers when the company came out of such a positive period.
In fact, the company saw its TDUP shares fall 48 percent the day it reported second quarter results, due primarily to a sharp cut in the company’s second half guidance for the year. At issue appeared to be company management’s concern about a more price-sensitive consumer environment and a plan to increase promotions as a result. That apparently weighed heavily on analysts’ and investors’ minds when looking at the back half of the year and the lowered guidance that accompanied the news.
“Despite a record quarter for new buyers acquired and record active buyers, we had to be incrementally promotional to drive conversion among our most price-sensitive shoppers,” Reinhart shared at the time. He said this approach led to lower average selling prices (ASPs) and average revenue per buyer, which ultimately created an estimated $3 million headwind to the company’s top-line results in the second quarter.
Outlook
In the third quarter, TDUP now expects revenue in the range of $87 million to $89 million, representing 7 percent year-over-year growth at the midpoint and a 20.3 percent two-year average growth rate.
Third quarter gross margin is expected in the range of 78 percent to 79 percent, with Adjusted EBITDA of approximately 4 percent of revenue, and basic weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 132 million shares.
For the fourth quarter, company CFO Sean Sobers said the company now expects revenue in the range of $85 million to $87 million, representing 8 percent y/y growth at the midpoint and a 13.2 percent two-year average growth rate.
Fourth quarter gross margin is expected in the range of 77.5 percent to 78.5 percent of revenue, with Adjusted EBITDA of approximately 6 percent of revenue, and basic weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 133 million shares.
For full-year 2026, the CFO reported that they now expect revenue in the range of $344.4 million to $348.4 million, reflecting 11 percent year-over-year growth at the midpoint and a 15.5 percent two-year average growth rate.
Full year gross margin is forecast in the range of 78.7 percent to 79.1 percent of revenue, with Adjusted EBITDA of approximately 4.7 percent of revenue, representing approximately 30 basis points expansion versus last year. Basic weighted average shares outstanding are forecast at approximately 131 million shares.
Sobers said the company expects to continue to be cash flow positive for the full year.
“As we progress through the back half of 2026 and throughout 2027, we will balance growth investments while planning to drive EBITDA expansion,” Sobers suggested. “Despite the temporary macroeconomic friction outside of our control, we remain confident in the core fundamentals of our marketplace, our proven ability to engage buyers, and our path forward towards long-term growth and profitability.”
Reinhart said he remains confident in the company’s long-term position. “I am most excited by the fact that the structure of our business, the fundamentals are as good as they have been in a long time,” he said. “The economy is challenging. We are not going to be permanently in this state.”
He added that the company expects to emerge with more customers, better supply and more product services than before.
TDUP shares closed down 2.2 percent to close at $2.20 on Monday, September 28. Shares are down more than 65 percent for the year-to-date period.
See article link below for more on ThredUp’s second quarter.
Image courtesy ThredUp
EXEC: ThredUp Shares Halved after Lowering Back Half Guidance
