ThredUp takes aim at Poshmark and eBay with new peer-to-peer listings

Thred Up users have a routine. They stuff a bag with the sweaters and jeans they never wear, mail it off and let the company do the heavy lifting. Thred Up receives the package and proceeds to photograph, price, and list everything, so the sellers can forget about it until they get money deposited in their bank account a few months later. But for many sellers, there’s one thing they hold back—a pair of Manolo Blahniks, a Louis Vuitton purse—because it’s special and they don’t want to let it go for less than it’s worth. So they might opt to sell it on TheRealReal or Poshmark, where they have more control. Starting today, they no longer need to. ThredUp is launching Direct Listings, an open-beta peer-to-peer marketplace that lets sellers post individual items at their own price, right next to the Clean Out bags that drove ThredUp’s business. For the first time, sellers can hand over items they don’t care about and personally list the ones they do within the same app. Resale is on track to be a nearly $80 billion U.S. market by 2030, and after years of explosive growth, ThredUp’s founder and CEO, James Reinhart, sees a new phase looming. “What you’ll see over the next couple of years is consolidation,” he says. To win that phase, though, ThredUp has to serve a wide range of customer needs. The resale market is sorted into two camps. There is the do-it-yourself, peer-to-peer platforms—eBay, mobile-first Poshmark, Gen-Z oriented Depop, plus luxury players like Vestiaire Collective. On the other side are managed marketplaces, where the company does the heavy lifting. This includes The RealReal, which caters to luxury sellers, and ThredUp itself, which sells more mass market brands. ThredUp was always built for the seller who didn’t want to do too much work. But in focus groups with sellers, many were asking for more control over a handful of items—and the peer-to-peer model isn’t really built for them.