Mid-Year Recommerce Check-In: Are You Leaving Margin on the Table?
We’re halfway through the year, and brands are already looking ahead to Q4 — mapping promotions, prepping inventory, and setting aggressive revenue goals for the Holidays. While you’re planning to generate a lot of revenue this holiday season, it’s just as important to find ways to make that revenue as profitable as possible by reducing margin loss and tightening up operational leaks.
That’s where recommerce comes in.
A strong recommerce program can be a revenue and margin machine, but only if it’s set up to capture value across the board. At Treet, we help brands audit and optimize their programs before the high season hits. Here's where to look for hidden opportunity.
1. Check for Margin Leaks in Returns & Excess Inventory
Second-quality returns are often discarded, and overstock is typically treated as a low-margin branding headache, rather than revenue opportunities hiding in plain sight. With the right process, they can become high-margin resale wins. Take stock of:
- Restock rates: Are returned items being restocked and resold, or sent off to liquidators at a loss?
- B-Grade Inventory: Slightly imperfect items are perfect for resale, but many brands are simply discarding them as trash or at steep discounts during sample sales.
- Excess Inventory: Don’t let excess inventory drag down your margins. Move it through resale channels like your own site or eBay to recover value without the steep discounts of traditional clearance.
Brands are adding tens of thousands in revenue per month by optimizing just this layer alone.
2. Audit Who’s Buying, and Who’s Not
Once your recommerce program is live, the next step is understanding your resale customers:
- Are they one-time buyers or loyal repeat shoppers?
- Are they brand-new to your ecosystem?
- Are they coming back to buy full-price?
With Treet, you get actionable segmentation that shows who’s buying what, where they’re coming from, and how to drive more value, all integrated with your core data systems. Every time someone signs up, buys, or sells on your resale site, their profile in Klaviyo and Shopify updates automatically. They’re tagged as a resale buyer, seller, or both, so you always know who’s who.
3. Fix What’s Not Working (While You Still Have Time)
Mid-year is your last real window to test, adjust, and dial-in your resale program before the Q4 surge. Now’s the time to:
- Expand listings: The more inventory you make available, especially brand-owned inventory, the more opportunities you create for customers to find what they want, leading to higher conversion rates and better overall resale performance.
- Optimize returns routing: By directing b-grade returned items to your resale channel instead of liquidation or disposal, you increase restock rates, minimize margin loss, and extend the lifecycle of your products.
- Upgrade your merchandising: Effective merchandising, like consistent imagery, clear sizing info, and curated collections—helps shoppers find the right items faster and feel confident in their purchase, increasing conversion and repeat purchases.
Whether you’ve launched resale already or are just getting started, a focused audit now can help you turn Q4 into a margin-maximizing moment.
4. Turn P2P Listings into a Revenue Engine
If your resale program is primarily peer-to-peer, expanding into trade-In and brand-owned inventory can unlock new margin and reach. Trade-In helps bring more sellers into your ecosystem, while brand-owned listings offer greater control, visibility, and sell-through, especially when both are integrated into your main experience
Ask yourself:
- Are customer listings getting surfaced alongside brand-owned product?
- Is there a feedback loop to convert those buyers into brand loyalists?
- Are you using referral incentives or credits to boost P2P engagement?
With the right approach, P2P can scale revenue while reducing operational overhead.
5. Use Resale Insights to Inform Primary Sales
Recommerce generates live-market product intelligence.
What’s moving fastest on resale? Which sizes and styles are being relisted most often? Where is customer demand outpacing supply?
When resale data is plugged into your product and planning workflows, it can:
- Improve forecasting and reduce future overstock
- Surface new bestsellers
- Identify opportunities for limited-edition re-releases or bundles
Resale is the canary in the coal mine, and the map to buried treasure.
Final Takeaways
Recommerce is a living channel that needs mid-year optimization to pay off big in Q4.
Every return, excess unit, or unloved listing is a margin opportunity in disguise. But only if your system is built to capture it.
Whether you're launching a new resale program or improving an existing one, Treet helps brands activate the right levers fast, delivering real results in under 30 days of launch. Let’s see what you’re missing.
