Marimekko Partners With Archive To Make Resale And Vintage Possible

Finnish design-house Marimekko launched yesterday its new resale and vintage marketplace, Pre-loved. The community-driven marketplace, which is powered by resale technology company Archive aims to increase the lifespan of its products, a key element in the company’s sustainability strategy. With Archive as its resale technology partner, Marimekko now has a highly customized platform to further scale its circular objectives.

The launch follows a pilot concept, which debuted a year ago, during which Marimekko sold 60 unique vintage pieces online in celebration of the brand’s 70^th anniversary. At launch, Marimekko Pre-loved will only be available in Finland, however, the brand has plans to extend the service to other markets in the near future.

Joining and listing items on the digital platform is be free-of-charge. Sellers are able to either directly redeem their earnings in cash or exchange them into a gift voucher to be used at www.marimekko.com.

Joining and listing items on the digital platform is free-of-charge, Marimekko said. Sellers have the option to either directly redeem their earnings in cash or exchange them into a gift voucher to be used at www.marimekko.com. The Marimekko Pre-loved marketplace went live on August 25^th at marikmekko.com.

Archive created a custom resale platform for Marimekko. The brand is one of the most sought-after secondhand brands in Finland and its products command high prices.

The new resale platform, which supports Marimekko’s sustainability goals, is anchored by the ethos that timeless designs bring joy to consumers. In addition to enabling peer-to-peer sales, the new marketplace is open to B2C vendors. Marimekko will also release a special selection of vintage dresses culled from the Sixties to the Aughts and sourced from the brand’s archive and sold on the platform.

“In 2021, Marimekko established an internal Innovation Works Unit, which focuses on material and dye innovations, new sustainable business models, and new production processes,” said Suvi-Elina Enqvist, Head of Innovation Works at Marimekko.

“The team had been benchmarking various secondhand resale platforms for some time, and it became clear that Archive was quickly becoming the market leader in this segment, with an impressive portfolio of brands, including The North Face, Filippa K, Oscar De La Renta, and now Marimekko Pre-loved.

“After initial discussions with Archive, it became evident that we shared a compatible set of values and a vision for what we wanted to achieve — namely, Archive’s drive to lengthen the lifecycle of products was a natural corollary to our own core focus as a brand, which is based on creating timeless design that brings people long-lasting joy” said Enqvist.

“Marimekko Pre-loved is a concrete manifestation of our design philosophy – Marimekko dresses have been known to be passed on from one generation to the next, and the launch of Marimekko’s secondhand platform will bring this tradition into an even more tangible form,” Enqvist said.

The partnership with Archive has felt very natural and the two companies worked extremely closely together, every step of the way, to build an experience that embodies Marimekko across every touch point.

“Due to our long heritage as a design house, we get to learn the most fascinating stories that our dresses have had in the course of our 70-year existence. It felt extremely important for us to find a way to incorporate these amazing stories of our pieces into the marketplace, which is why we included a feature, through which sellers can share the unique story of the item being listed, which we hope will make the future owner cherish the piece even more, and hopefully for years, if not generations, to come,” Enqvist said.

She noted that the brand learned a lot from its pilot, the first thing being that fortunately, there is a huge pent-up demand for Marimekko secondhand products.

“More interestingly, we also learned about the diversity in the vintage and secondhand demand, specifically related to two customer segments – one that is primarily interested in finding rare, vintage, one-of-a-kind Marimekko pieces and the other that is primarily interested in finding a good bargain,” Enqvist said.

“Seeing the excitement and demand for Marimekko’s vintage pieces, in particular, gave us the confidence to focus our attention on this part of the resale segment,” Enqvist said. “In addition, we saw how demand outstripped our supply, which was going to be a challenge in scaling the platform into the future.

“In that sense, the pilot also opened our eyes to the need for more diversity in supply, which was going to be critical for meeting the diversity in demand. The initial idea was to launch the platform exclusively for individual sellers, but we quickly learned that other established secondhand businesses were also interested in leveraging the platform and would help us gain the critical volumes of inventory,” Enqvist said.

“In Finland, we already have all the major secondhand outlets registered as sellers in Marimekko Pre-loved,” she added. “This enables a seamless customer experience for our community, hence a large majority of Marimekko secondhand items can be purchased through one concise marketplace.”

One of the priorities in the Marimekko’s Innovation Works unit was to create minimal viable product and bring it to market as quickly as possible, whether in secondhand resale, material and dye innovations, new sustainable business models, or new production processes. “In the case of secondhand, given our knowledge of the local Finnish market, with its large, existing inventory of Marimekko secondhand items, a local launch allowed us to get things up and running in a relatively short time-frame,” Enqvist said.

“Given how quickly this secondhand space is developing, it was critical for us to start learning about this resale market as soon as possible — and, what better way to do that than with our very own resale platform,” Enqvist.

Expanding the secondhand platform into new markets and into new product categories, such as Marimekko’s Home collection, is a priority. “That’s why we partnered with Archive, which has the operational and technological flexibility to scale up Marimekko Pre-loved into a truly global platform. We’re aiming to expand the Marimekko Pre-loved platform to additional markets over the coming years,” Enqvist said.

“Sellers will be able to redeem their sales in cash or to exchange their earnings for a gift voucher to be used on www.marimekko.com or any of our brick-and-mortar stores,” said Enqvist. “In the case of direct redemption, Marimekko will take a 20 percent commission, while sellers receive 100 percent of their earnings if they choose the gift voucher option.

“If I had to make an early prediction, knowing the passion and loyalty of the Marimekko community, the gift voucher may well prove to be the more popular choice,” Enqvist.