Sonia Yang – Treet
Resale stores are a treasure trove of low-priced, gently used products. Not only does shopping at one help the environment by recycling old fashion, but popular brands can be resold for half their original retail value. Customers love it. The brands, however, do not see any financial gain from this constant selling and reselling between their customers. Sonia Yang, age 27, devised a solution to help brands maintain connections with their customers through this reselling process. “These transactions are going to happen whether you like it or not, so why not lean into it?” she states in a Forbes article.
In 2021, Sonia Yang cofounded her software company Treet. Comparable to Shopify, the site allows customers to clear out their wardrobe by selling previously worn items. What makes Treet stand out, however, is its direct brand involvement in the reselling process. With a very simple set up, any business can design their own page through the software. The brand can then list products of theirs being resold by their customers. Once a product is sold, the customer and the brand both get commission for the sale. Due to the simple, cost-efficient platform setup, brands not only tap into a previously inaccessible revenue stream but also earn a high return on investment.
In the four years Treet has been alive, they now host over 200 company brands and have raised $16.4 million. The greatest achievement of Treet, however, is its impact on the environment. In 2020, with the California skies ablaze, Yang felt a need to create something that would reverse the effects of climate change by reducing waste, thus, her resale platform with its easy UX design has allowed products to remain in circulation longer. To make it stand out from other third-party resale sites, of course, she included direct brand involvement, so they may too play a part in restoring the environment.
The way Treet supports customers, businesses, and the planet all at once is quite the entrepreneurial feat.
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This is a super interesting idea and I want to know how the people using Treet feel about it. I wonder why a person who is selling their clothes would want to lose some money they could make by selling it on Tweets and letting the brand take some of the profit as well as opposed to selling it on your own. Either way I think this is a great example of finding a niche that no one else was making a profit out of yet.
Redemptive innovation is possible pretty much everywhere; Sonia Yang’s entrepreneurial journey and company, Treet, is a great example of this. If someone is interested in the resale market, the clothing industry, or protecting the planet from unnecessary excess waste, I doubt a software company/startup is the first idea that would come to mind. Yet, a software company is exactly how Sonia successfully integrates all three of these attributes while profitably bridging multiple gaps in the market. I don’t know the details of her journey, though some further research shows she had some kind of tech/software experience from working at Airbnb, but her personal experience must have played an important part in Treet being an adjacent possible. Her problem-finding and problem-solving demonstrate the essence of innovation beautifully.
Such an inspiring story. Reducing our waste via the recycling of clothes is such a smart way to help the planet. The sheer amount of waste we produce when we throw clothes away is staggering, I have seen pictures of literal mountains of thrown away clothes and the fact someone is doing something to combat this warms my heart.
What an interesting thought. “I have to go thought the transaction process why don’t I make it an experience?” Connecting businesses to customers really is a great way to serve both businesses and consumers. Also her way of giving back to the environment is a great way to show that her business is looking more long term than all immediate gains. What an inspiration!