Buying and selling designer clothing just became a whole lot easier with this startup

Ladies, tell me if this sounds familiar: despite having a wardrobe chock-full of clothes that you’ve never worn before, every new fashion season you’ll be out there swiping your credit card. If you’re reading this and shaking your head, congratulations – you belong to a tiny minority.

Modern consumer-to-consumer (C2C) selling apps offer an elegant solution to the problem of overcrowded wardrobes. They help people sell idle items to buyers who are looking for a bargain. Marketplace apps, such as Singapore-based Carousell, have become extremely popular with this crowd. However, Stephanie Crespin, founder of fashion ecommerce website Style Tribute, wants to focus on the top end of the secondhand market.

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In Asia, the high-end fashion C2C secondhand market is not properly exploited yet. However, on a global scale many secondhand fashion businesses have flourished, especially in the US,” she explains.

Style Tribute was one of ten startups who participated in the Startup Arena Singapore 2014 competition just last month. They recently raised a round of seed funding from Great Simians, Crystal Horse Investments, as well as three angel investors, one of which is Trevor Healy, CEO of Amobee and former VP/GM of Paypal. The amount is undisclosed.

Catering to young corporate women

The idea for Style Tribute was born from Crespin’s passion for vintage and unique designer pieces. While in Paris and Brussels, she spotted several brick-and-mortar stores where she could sell her idle couture pieces and uncover incredible luxury products. As work became more demanding, though, she lacked time to hunt down original pieces or sell items to shops.

“I then turned to Ebay, and had a really frustrating experience there. Selling was a hassle, and finding a fashionable piece on Ebay was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” she recalls. With this in mind, she created a platform for young corporates such as herself who are passionate about fashion.

Selling on Style Tribute is easy enough. All you need to do is submit a form and a couple of photos of your item, and the team will take care of the rest – uploading your pictures and information onto the website, picking up your item from you, shipping it to the new owner, and finally transferring the proceeds to you.

Crespin thinks that this concept will work because it addresses the needs of the current generation of working women, who typically have one too many designer pieces but are simply too lazy – or short of time – to sell them. They might also have no idea where they can get a good price for them. She elaborates:

They are smart shoppers – they know how to find a good deal, enabling them to wear as many stylish designer items as they possibly can with their income level. After all, why should one have to pay full price when she can get it on Style Tribute at 85 percent off? 
We have arrived at a generation of value seekers and educated shoppers who are knowledgeable about the different purchase options available. Prices have never been more transparent, and finding the items at the best price is within everyone’s reach. Consequently, we are engaging everyone independently of their social class or economic power.

An overcrowded wardrobe might not be the only reason why women want to sell their clothes. According to Crespin, the motivations vary widely. “One of our first clients was moving to a colonial
 house, and was concerned that the humidity would damage her gowns,” she says. “Our latest client had experienced an event’s theme change at the last minute, and the S$3,000 dress she bought specifically for that occasion was no longer appropriate.
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Maintaining high standards

Style Tribute 2.0