HISTORY & BACKGROUND

After the shut-down of her previous company, divorce from her husband and subsequent ostracism from Silicon Valley, Julie Wainwright created The RealReal, luxury consignment company, in 2011 right from her kitchen table. Using a U-Haul to visit consigners from her house in Marin County, Wainwright was interested in “upcycling” from an early age, thanks to her artist parents. She tells Forbes “My mother would go to people's homes and, if for example they had a nice rug, she'd say, ‘When you’re ready to sell it, I’ll buy it from you. ’” The company has gone from being a start-up that Forbes valued at $300 million in 2015, to an IPO with a market cap of 1.244B, as of Sept. 24, 2021.

The company started off with a focus on Women’s fashion and accessories, but now deals with a range of products, as well as non-resale items as well. Products that are sent in by consigners go through a rigorous authentication process through which their quality and state is determined. This then determines the price they can be sold at. They are then photographed and put on the website and either held in a warehouse or sent to a store location to be displayed and kept there until their purchase. Once they have been purchased, they are taken off the site and a pre-established percentage of the revenue is sent to the consigner.