We’ve written about UK based vintage marketplace RETRUly before. It’s a good looking and quirky ecommerce site that specialises in all things vintage: vinyl, furniture, fashion and all sorts. Have you used it?
And now they are looking to expand. So they’re going to need money for that. And their first stop is their ecommerce community of sellers.
As they say on their blog: “We are no (sic) preparing for our very first investment round so we can really start to scale the marketplace to satisfy the demand. Rather than seeking a single investor we want to provide the opportunity to the vintage community to own a stake in RETRuly. For this reason our first investment round will be opened up to small investors who want to be part of this but don’t have large amounts to invest. Whatever you decide to invest will provide you with an equity stake in the business so as it grows you are likely to see a substantial return on that investment. This is a unique opportunity to get on board in the very first funding cycle.”
So far RETRUly has 200 active sellers and over 6500 products listed. They are signing up new vintage sellers at 15 per month. It’s clearly still a small marketplace but it’s seemingly got big ambitions and is keen to grow the base and scope of its operations. As it stands at the moment, there is no clear detail on the offering for investors and few meaningful financial details. They just want people to express an interest in possibly investing.
Such an approach strikes us a very good idea. Interestingly, it was something that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar considered back before eBay went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 1998. Ever the idealist, he wanted to bring existing sellers in to the IPO so they could join in the company’s future and enjoy, perhaps, the spoils. It wasn’t to be, but the idea was a good one and many sellers from back then in the early eBay days would be very wealthy had such an idea come to pass.
Nobody knows what REtruly’s future holds. But we’ll be keeping watch and keeping you informed.
One Response
Contacted them and have had no response.