Totally - there’s absolutely a collectors market, especially from the heyday of tech optimism (I guess 2012-2018 or so?). Upcycling would make these rarer; maybe that leads to an equilibrium where enough supply is destroyed that prices for old swag go up, causing people to protect what’s left.
Speaking of, I would absolutely visit a museum of rare swag. A pop-up showcasing the weirder or more stylish pieces from history feels like it could be pretty successful. I’d happily listen to an oral history from the marketers who designed a Bing hairdryer.
(Also: 2013 was peak Quora. A top writer jacket sounds very cool, I’d love to see a picture)
I generally believe there is a market opportunity here as well but would look at it slightly differently: 1) I believe you underestimating the environmental challenges for shipping products bi-directionally and using TBD chemicals/processes to remove the logos that may outweigh the benefits, and 2) perhaps this is more of a re-use angle where these marketing materials are sold at ultra-low prices (or donated) in bulk to areas where people may not care that it has logos are use them for alternative purposes (e.g., t-shirts become rags for a garage)
Great points. On the environmental side, that makes sense - it's probably very product dependent. If you're just using an embroidery cutter it's fairly straightforward, but for niche items the process (and any chemicals used) probably wipe out the environmentally friendly angle. I do think we can mitigate wasteful bi-directional shipping by structuring fees/commissions to incentivize sending inventory in bulk.
On your second point, are you thinking like the Super Bowl loser shirts? Allegedly they get sent abroad never to be seen again. I see the appeal of that market; high-value items (e.g. Patagonia jackets) have some margin, but there are only so many available. If you want to scale, eventually you're dealing with cheap t-shirts that might make more sense as rags.
Maybe this makes the most sense as a side hustle for a student while they figure out how scalable the market is?
Amazing idea! I'm intrigued by the possibility of relative value and arbitrage. A Google bag might lose its value to a Googler, but it might be a flex for somebody who couldn't get a job at Google. There might be a market for just reselling stuff without removing the brand. There's also the case that UnLogo can act as a middleman for other businesses that aggregate branded stuff and resell them.
That’s such a great extension, especially for the two sided marketplace idea - you could offer to buy it with or without the logo, with a fee added on for logo removal.
I imagine the difference in the market comes from age and experience. When I was in college a Google branded item WAS really cool - I had an aspirational idea of what the company was and what it would represent to me if I worked there. Today it feels closer to normal swag and I’d prefer to drop the logo. Maybe there’s a two way flow of goods - old branded stuff from experienced workers swapped with brand new debranded swag from students and early career professionals?
Brilliant! Just organized my closet this weekend and the number of genuinely nice jackets/ sweatshirts (with logos) collecting dust in the corner…I do think this idea would work better for clothing, though. Do you think there’s a marketplace for non-clothing items? Unfortunately, those are the ones I do think are more likely to end up in a landfill.
Absolutely! The good(?) news is that ~25% of swag spending goes to apparel - your closet isn’t alone. Apparel doesn’t have to be everything too - the fancy water bottles and backpacks definitely have some resale value.
I’m sad to say that I don’t think branded mousepads or plushies have much of a future in the upcycling business. You can sort of imagine a traditional recycling business for them, but is anyone going to bother collecting $0.30 of cotton and rubber? Maybe that side of the business has to go direct to companies - you could get paid to collect unused swag to boost their ESG scores?
Maybe do gooder MBAs would pay to send it for free and take a tax deduction, company removes logo and makes money for non profits. Something like a subset service of https://gogreendrop.com/
I think there's a potential side-market in collecting these as historical artifacts of the swag economy.
I had a jacket that Quora sent me for a Top Writer award in 2013. Imagine what one of those in mint condition would be worth in 20-30 years?
Totally - there’s absolutely a collectors market, especially from the heyday of tech optimism (I guess 2012-2018 or so?). Upcycling would make these rarer; maybe that leads to an equilibrium where enough supply is destroyed that prices for old swag go up, causing people to protect what’s left.
Speaking of, I would absolutely visit a museum of rare swag. A pop-up showcasing the weirder or more stylish pieces from history feels like it could be pretty successful. I’d happily listen to an oral history from the marketers who designed a Bing hairdryer.
(Also: 2013 was peak Quora. A top writer jacket sounds very cool, I’d love to see a picture)
Haha well it fell apart a while back. But it was basically an Eddie Bauer northface knockoff.
I generally believe there is a market opportunity here as well but would look at it slightly differently: 1) I believe you underestimating the environmental challenges for shipping products bi-directionally and using TBD chemicals/processes to remove the logos that may outweigh the benefits, and 2) perhaps this is more of a re-use angle where these marketing materials are sold at ultra-low prices (or donated) in bulk to areas where people may not care that it has logos are use them for alternative purposes (e.g., t-shirts become rags for a garage)
Great points. On the environmental side, that makes sense - it's probably very product dependent. If you're just using an embroidery cutter it's fairly straightforward, but for niche items the process (and any chemicals used) probably wipe out the environmentally friendly angle. I do think we can mitigate wasteful bi-directional shipping by structuring fees/commissions to incentivize sending inventory in bulk.
On your second point, are you thinking like the Super Bowl loser shirts? Allegedly they get sent abroad never to be seen again. I see the appeal of that market; high-value items (e.g. Patagonia jackets) have some margin, but there are only so many available. If you want to scale, eventually you're dealing with cheap t-shirts that might make more sense as rags.
Maybe this makes the most sense as a side hustle for a student while they figure out how scalable the market is?
Amazing idea! I'm intrigued by the possibility of relative value and arbitrage. A Google bag might lose its value to a Googler, but it might be a flex for somebody who couldn't get a job at Google. There might be a market for just reselling stuff without removing the brand. There's also the case that UnLogo can act as a middleman for other businesses that aggregate branded stuff and resell them.
That’s such a great extension, especially for the two sided marketplace idea - you could offer to buy it with or without the logo, with a fee added on for logo removal.
I imagine the difference in the market comes from age and experience. When I was in college a Google branded item WAS really cool - I had an aspirational idea of what the company was and what it would represent to me if I worked there. Today it feels closer to normal swag and I’d prefer to drop the logo. Maybe there’s a two way flow of goods - old branded stuff from experienced workers swapped with brand new debranded swag from students and early career professionals?
Brilliant! Just organized my closet this weekend and the number of genuinely nice jackets/ sweatshirts (with logos) collecting dust in the corner…I do think this idea would work better for clothing, though. Do you think there’s a marketplace for non-clothing items? Unfortunately, those are the ones I do think are more likely to end up in a landfill.
Absolutely! The good(?) news is that ~25% of swag spending goes to apparel - your closet isn’t alone. Apparel doesn’t have to be everything too - the fancy water bottles and backpacks definitely have some resale value.
I’m sad to say that I don’t think branded mousepads or plushies have much of a future in the upcycling business. You can sort of imagine a traditional recycling business for them, but is anyone going to bother collecting $0.30 of cotton and rubber? Maybe that side of the business has to go direct to companies - you could get paid to collect unused swag to boost their ESG scores?
Maybe do gooder MBAs would pay to send it for free and take a tax deduction, company removes logo and makes money for non profits. Something like a subset service of https://gogreendrop.com/
I need this