On the same day it announced a challenging second quarter and revealed it would divest its European business, the secondhand platform looked to the tools as a source of optimism and a shot at attracting and retaining shoppers. jorts” or “sweater for work” and image search, which allows users to upload photos of items and be matched with similar items from ThredUp’s stock.
“Our average person has these personas. Where I see this incredible opportunity is, once you’ve given us, ‘Hey, these are my personas, and this is generally how my style manifests itself,’ you can save that in ThredUp, and then every day, every week, every month, on whatever cadence, we can populate your own personal thrift store based on exactly what you’re looking for. There’s real power in that from a repeat perspective,” Reinhart said.
ThredUp’s new AI suite came at a cost — earlier this year, the company laid off 25 percent of its staff, partially due to the company’s decision to go all in on AI, Reinhart since said. The adjustment has proven difficult he said, but current ThredUp employees have higher degrees of collaboration and an intense focus on how technology can better the organization.