Introduction to the features & possible customizations of the Resale App
Introduction
At Trendful we have created a resale app where your customers can seamlessly sell upfront, consign, and/or trade-in their pre-owned items for store credit. The Resale App can be integrated onto any website that supports JavaScript. To learn more read our Introduction to our Resale App guide.
Your customers can seamlessly use the Resale App to find their item, describe the condition, and receive an instant offer. Alternatively, your customers can also request a manual quote.
When your customers sell or consign their items to you through your Resale App they will be prompted to create an account. Once they have created an account, they can view their past/current offers as well as their past/incoming payouts.
In addition, from within their account on the Resale App, your customers can download and print shipping labels, accept quotes, edit their contact information, and securely link their bank accounts in order to receive payouts.
At Trendful, we understand that each resale business has its own set of needs when it comes to buying and selling preowned goods. This is why the Resale App was made to be customized to fit the needs of your business.
Continue reading to learn more about the various features you can customize on the Resale App. The customizable features described in this guide are currently the only features that you can customize, unless you have the Trendful Enterprise Plan.
Current Customizable Features
Change the title and subtitle of the homepage
The first option you have to customize is to edit the title of the homepage. By default, the title is “Sell with us” and the subtitle is “Describe your item, get an offer, ship it, get paid.”
For example, if you provide instant buyouts, you can edit the title to “Instant cash offers available” as seen in the image below. While you can also, for example, use the subtitle to promote your reselling process or a marketing campaign.
Both the title and subtitle offer you the opportunity to catch the attention of your customers before they even go to add an item to sell or consign to you.
List the categories you accept
With the Resale App, you can accept any type of item to do this you can select the categories you want to accept pre-owned items from
Some examples of categories you could choose to include are (see the images below):
- Handbags
- Shoes
- Clothing
- Watches
- Jewelry
- Electronic devices
- Toys & games
- Sports equipment, etc
The Resale App and the Trendful Admin were created to be vertical-agnostic, meaning our resale software can be used for any type of pre-owned item you choose to buy and sell.
For resale businesses that buy and sell designer handbags, Trendful has built a database of 43 top designers with over 35K models of handbags. Therefore, if you select handbags as one of your categories your customers will be guided through a step-by-step process that enables them to find the bag they wish to sell/consign to you.
We are in process of releasing a database for watches that will also guide your customers through a step-by-step process to find their watch and have instant prices displayed to them.
For other categories, that we have not built a database for yet like clothing or electronic devices, your customers will be redirected to request a manual quote. Where they will be able to provide the brand, title, photos, and additional information about their item.
Select brands you accept
Currently, we have only created a database of designer handbags. The next database that we will have available soon will be for designer watches.
If your business chooses to accept designer handbags, our database includes 43 top designers with a collection of 35K products. You can select which brands you want to include on your Resale App from the one listed in the database. Currently, you can not add any additional brands to this designer handbag list. If do you accept other designer brands, you can use disclaimers (see in the disclaimer section) to indicate which additional brands you accept.
If your customers select a category other than handbags, they will be automatically redirected to a manual request form where they will be prompted to fill out the brand and other information about their item.
Choose the conditions you accept
By default, the Trendful Resale App has 4 condition options for your company to choose to accept – Excellent, Great, Good, and Fair.
Your business can choose to accept all of the above conditions, or you can choose to accept only one. For example, if your company chooses you can accept just Excellent and Great condition.
You are able to choose the conditions you want to accept based on the specific category – meaning you can choose different conditions to accept for handbags vs electronic devices.
In the next section, we will discuss how you can also customize the condition page of the Resale App by providing an image and description for each condition option your business accepts.
Customize the condition descriptions and condition example picture
By default, the Resale App comes with the following condition descriptions:
- Excellent - Items in "Excellent" condition have been rarely worn and do not have any other visible signs of wear except for maybe very faint marks
- Great - Items in "Great" condition have been slightly worn with minor marks or scratches
- Good - Items in "Good" condition have been worn regularly and have light to moderate wear, which may include scratches, stains, discoloration, or other marks
- Fair - Items in "Fair" condition have been used repeatedly and have apparent signs of wear to both the exterior and interior, including the base and corners, stains, discoloration, or other marks
At this time you cannot change the condition names (Excellent, Great, Good, Fair), however, your business can customize the description for each condition you accept in order to better explain to your customers what each condition means specifically to your company (see image above).
In addition to customizing the condition description, you can also provide us with one image per condition (jpeg or png). The image should embody what your business considers each condition to look like. Therefore, when a customer clicks on a condition they will see the description as well as the image you provide us (see example image above).
*We do not provide example images for each condition.
Customize the minimum number of pictures you want uploaded
You can select the minimum number of images you want to require your customers to upload of their item.
8 is the maximum number of pictures that we currently allow you to have your customers upload.
In addition, your customers can only upload jpeg or png images, the Resale App does not support the iPhone heic image format.
Rename the image placeholders
By default the image placeholders will be “Add photo”, however, you can choose to rename these placeholders to what works best for your business.
For example, if you accept designer handbags, you could change the default names to “Front”, “Back”, “Bottom”, “Inside”, “Hardware”, “Condition detail”, etc. There are exactly 8 image placeholders so you can edit up to 8 names.
You can rename the image placeholders differently for each category you accept as a business.
Change the placeholder text in the “Additional details” text box
By default, the placeholder text is “Purchase date, purchase price, etc”.
You can optimize this text for your specific business needs and guide your customers with the type of additional details you would like to know from them. For example, you could change the text to “Purchase price and expected offer price”.
Choose your pricing strategy
One of the biggest benefits of Trendful’s Resale App is the ability to customize your pricing strategy for your specific business needs. This next section will delve into some of the details of customizing and creating your own pricing strategy for your Resale App.
For more details, read our article on Introduction to creating a pricing strategy.
Select the offer option(s) you want to accept
Depending on your business model - you can select the offer option(s) you want to offer to your customers: buyout, consignment, and/or store credit.
For example, your business can choose to accept all 3 options or just one. Alternatively, you can also require manual offers for all items.
Describe your commission structure in order to have instant pricing
If you plan on having instant offers displayed on your Resale App (buyout, consignment, and/or store credit) you will need to create a pricing strategy that best suits your specific business. And if you are only giving manual offers to your customers, Trendful still sends you suggested offer values based on your pricing strategy. You can find them in the notification email you receive once a customer request a manual offer.
Each week, we collect millions of data points that we use to analyze trends and compute current fair market values for thousands of designer handbags from our database.
To put it simply your pricing strategy (commission structure) is the ratio of what you pay to your customer and your target markup, otherwise known as profit margin or the percentage that your business keeps. Therefore, with our fair market value estimate and your target markup, we can compute instant offers for your customers.
For example:
If your buyout commission structure is 60% / 40% – you will give 60% to your customer and keep 40%. Therefore, if a handbag’s fair market value is $1040, the instant buyout displayed to your customer will be $624.
Your pricing strategy describes your commission structure and can vary based on:
- the offer option chosen by the customer
- the estimated fair market value of the selected item
- the category, condition, brand, or other attributes of the items (for example, model or style for handbags).
For example, you can aim for a target markup of 40% for Louis Vuitton but 30% for Chanel. In addition, you can define that bags with an estimated fair market value over $5000 in excellent condition will only be subject to a target markup of 20%.
You will need to define the target markup that you want to make for each instant offer option – buyout, consignment, and/or store credit. The possibilities are endless for you to craft a pricing strategy that fits your specific resale business’ needs.
In addition, you can also in your pricing strategy decide to refuse certain items. For example, you can refuse any items estimated to be less than $500. Your customers will be prompted with a message that indicates you are currently not accepting that item.
*Currently, we can only display instant pricing from our database of designer handbags.
Choose if you want to have manual offers
Alternatively, if you don’t want any instant prices displayed you can choose as part of your pricing strategy to do only manual offers.
In this scenario (see image above) your customer once they find their item will be prompted with “Get an offer” on the confirmation page. If you have given Trendful your commission structure for buyouts, consignments, and/or store credit we can still give you offer recommendations via the automatic email we send your company.
Then in your Trendful Admin account, you will be able to manually create and send a quote to your customers.
Additionally, another way to customize with manual offers is that you can have instant pricing displayed for consignments and store credit, but require manual offers for buyouts (see image below).
In general, automating pricing is a great way to save your time computing prices while also converting more customers into sellers and therefore increasing your sell-through rate!
Learn more about how we compute prices with our article, Introduction to our Automated Pricing Solution.
Add a second confirmation option
In addition to the option of accepting or emailing an offer, you can add a second button that links to an external website.
For example, you can use this button to enable your customers to book an appointment or drop off the item at the location of your choice.
Automated shipping
Currently, automated shipping is only available in the United States and Canada. If your business operates outside of the US and Canada then you can either use your own shipping carrier or require your customers to pay for shipping to your location.
When a customer accepts an instant offer, you have the option to automatically give them a shipping label. The label is attached to the confirmation email sent to your customers. While on the Trendful Admin account, you automatically can view the shipping label rate and tracking information associated with the offer.
If you decide to not automate shipping, no shipping label will be sent to your customers when they accept the instant offer. However, you can still create a shipping label from your Trendful Admin account, decide to include insurance or not, and send it via automatic email to your customer.
Select your preferred shipping carrier
To enable automatic shipping with your Resale App you are able to select one preferred shipping carrier:
- USPS
- UPS
- Canada Post
- FedEx
Trendful has business accounts with those shipping carriers, which includes special business shipping rates.
*Please note that USPS labels are not scan-based which means that you pay for the label no matter if the customer ships the item or not. However, if the item hasn’t been shipped, you can cancel the label directly from the Trendful Admin and avoid being charged for it.
Shipping insurance
You can also choose to automatically include insurance. Insurance fees are 1% of the fair market value (i.e. if the estimated fair market value is $890, you will pay $8.90 in insurance fees). You can choose to turn off automated insurance at any time.
*Currently you can only buy insurance for items valued up to $5,000.
On the first of each month, you will be charged for the previous month’s accrued shipping costs (i.e.any items delivered to your location or for non-scan-based labels that were not canceled). Alternatively, if you do not want to pay for shipping for your customers, another option would be for you to deduct shipping and/or insurance costs from your customers’ payouts.
Resale App disclaimers
There are several places on the Resale App where you can write your own disclaimers. These disclaimers can be used to inform your customers you don't accept certain brands, about condition, or how your customers will get paid.
At this time you can only customize the following disclaimers: Category, Condition, and Confirmation disclaimer.
All disclaimers are optional and you are not required to have any disclaimer if you do not want.
Category disclaimer
Insert a disclaimer at the bottom of the category page (see image below).
Condition disclaimer
Insert a disclaimer at the bottom of the condition section (see image below).
Confirmation disclaimer
Insert a disclaimer on the confirmation page as well as instructions for when your customers select “Buyout”, “Consignment”, and “Store Credit” (see image below).
Your business can only have one confirmation disclaimer, while you can have different instructions based on the offer option selected.
By default, offer option instructions are as follows:
- Buyout: “You will get paid as soon as we receive and approve your item.”
- Consignment: “You will get paid when your item sells.”
- Store credit: “We will send you a gift card as soon as we receive and approve your item.”
Email disclaimers & other email customizations
With the automatic emails sent to your customers, there are a couple of places where you can add a disclaimer, customize next steps, and even adjust the response time for manual quote emails.
Customize “Next Steps” in the automatic confirmation email
In the confirmation email sent to your customers for instant offers, you have the ability to customize the “Next Steps” customers should take in order to send their item(s) to you (see image below).
Email disclaimer
Insert a disclaimer for the automatic email your customers receive for instant offers (see image above).
An example email disclaimer could be “We are committed to being anti-counterfeit. Should an item be determined counterfeit, seller will incur a $50.00 USD fee and the item will be disposed of.
Currently, you cannot have different email disclaimers for different item categories.
Customize response time
For the automatic email notification that is sent to customers after they request a manual quote, you can also adjust the response time (see image below).
By default, the response time is 24 hours.
Link your social media accounts
In the automatic emails sent to your customers you can also choose to link any of your social media accounts – Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Youtube, etc (see image below).
Choosing to link your social media accounts is completely optional.
Add terms & conditions
Before your customers accept an instant offer or submit a manual quote request, your customers will be prompted to create an account on the Resale App. This account allows them to keep up-to-date on their past/current offers and past/incoming payouts from you!
When they go to create an account they have to accept your terms & conditions, which enables you to protect your business as well as your customers.
There are two different ways in which you can give us your terms and conditions:
- You can provide a link to your Terms & Conditions on your website (see image below on the left).
- Or you can provide written text that describes your business’ Terms & Conditions (see image below on the right).
Conclusion
The Resale App features that are customizable are continuously evolving and may change in the future. However, currently, the features described in this guide are the only ones that are currently customizable for your Resale App, unless you have the Enterprise Plan.
Trendful will send email updates when new features are released. If at any time you would like to make changes to your current customizations, you can contact support@trendful.com.