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About Rachel Kimball
Rachel Kimball has years of experience working in the luxury and fashion industries. Her work has included styling, fashion blogging, and influencing. This experience led her to found Style & Give, the first luxury resale marketplace dedicated to supporting sellers’ charities.
Style & Give’s Co-Founder and Investor, Pete Wilhelm, and Rachel have been discussing the idea of starting a consignment shop since 2012.
Pete shares, “It was amazing to see Rachel’s passion and capability. Not only that, she loved helping people find a great deal, so much as it is about her helping others.”
Pete’s background is in the technology and digital media side of nonprofits. He previously worked with the Thoughtful Media Group, where he worked on YouTube influencer marketing campaigns.
Rachel and Pete’s strengths combine to make an excellent partnership for Style & Give by combining technology, giving, and fashion into one user-friendly interface.
How Does Style & Give Work?
Style & Give is organized into curated collections put together by Rachel.
She shares, “I know when I’m shopping, I am usually shopping for something specific, like earrings or a bag… I love to shop by collections, so I think that’s important, and consumers like that option, so he has that built into our site. Then we have an all products page, but I think that what is different about ours is we have our charities filtered.”
Sellers can choose different charities to give a percentage of their sales towards. The Style & Give website even allows sellers to select different rates from 5% to 100% for how much they want of the final selling price to be donated to their charity of choice.
The Selling Process
Pete explains that they have made the selling process as easy as possible. If you’re interested in selling a luxury product on their website, simply click the button saying “Sell/Donate with Us” in the top right-hand corner of the home page. A form will appear, where you fill out simple information such as your address, name, a charity of choice, and more.
Pete shares, “If you have over $250 in value estimate, we’ll work with you on getting the appropriate shipping. We don’t want a $5,000 bag going to a post office in an uninsured box. It’s [the process] pretty straightforward.”
They explain that it’s like Christmas to them because they are constantly opening up shipments and seeing many new items. It’s also exciting for them to learn more about all kinds of charities, especially ones in smaller towns and communities.
The sellers’ commissions and charities’ payments are issued on the 10th of every month. The donor also gets a tax credit.
Marketing Strategies for Style & Give
Pete shares that he spends a lot of time on the backend of Google to optimize Style & Give’s webpage and shop. However, one of their most effective marketing strategies is Rachel, who is a prolific blog writer. She has curated an extensive blog collection, which significantly helps the website rank on Google.
Rachel also appears in videos and interviews to create more publicity for Style & Give.
Pete notes, “We have a designer direct where we work with the actual designers so that they can promote to their charities as well as their products. We work with consignment shops directly to help them, particularly if they don’t have a website. We’ve worked with thrift shops that don’t have websites when they get a higher-end product.”
Influencer Marketing
The Style & Give team has reached out to influencers about influencer marketing campaigns previously. In the future, they hope to host collaborative live streams with influencers.
Rachel explains, “I think getting more influencers involved because of all the free things that they do get and all the boxes of clothes and what they do with them when they’re done with them. A lot of them have their own sales. They sell through Poshmark… but they may also like to get the chance to support their charity which I think is important to give back if they want to.”
Pete shares that they are also working on a new commission structure to draw in influencers, which they believe will be huge for their business.
Giving Back
Rachel explains that Style & Give is the first resale luxury marketplace supporting the seller’s choice of charity.
She says, “I feel like when we wanted to start, we knew we wanted to give back to the community and our charities. We love what we’re doing, so I think that makes it so much easier.”
Another unique aspect of Style & Give is its authenticity to the public and luxury designers.
He adds, “We put such a high standard on it, but there’s a lot of other groups out there that don’t do that from the authenticity side… We have this somewhat public entity and the other parts to maintain that trusted level to the amazing luxury products that come through. We want to be sure we’re honoring the designers and buyers on that.”
Their next goal? Taking Style & Give internationally.
Rachel notes, “We both have a passion for this, and I think we want to bring it to the world. I think that’s our vision for the future to grow it and get as many people involved in it and to help as many charities and the planet and resale, reuse, and recycle. That’s our goal.”
Amy DeYoung is a freelance blog post writer covering influencer marketing and business topics. As the daughter of two business owners, she’s been fascinated by all things business from a young age, which led her to graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree in business. When she’s not typing away, she spends her time reading nonfiction books and mystery novels, baking scrumptious desserts, and playing with her dog.
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