Helsinki-based Twice Commerce (formerly Rentle), which offers a technology retail platform for resale and rental of general goods, is launching multi-listing capabilities for its clients across major marketplaces.
“We’re going to introduce the means for our merchants to list their supply on existing marketplaces such as EBay,“ Twice Commerce CEO and founder Tuomo Laine told the AIM Group. He added that listings on other major marketplaces, such as France-based LeBonCoin, might also be enabled.
“We’re building it with AI, to allow them to easier connect with a wider customer base,” Laine added. “It will let them more naturally handle product returns and easily monetize their resale business. It will remove a lot of friction for the larger players.”
The changes, part of a larger re-design, will be gradually rolled out from Q4 this year.
Laine is a member of the Unreasonable Fellowship, a Boulder, Colorado-based invite-only community that says its members are “growth-stage entrepreneurs who bake their impact into the DNA of their profit model.” As an Unreasonable Fellowship member, Laine takes part in initiatives that seek to repurpose capitalism for the purpose of tackling pressing global challenges. He also hosts the Twice Commerce Recommerce podcast.
Twice Commerce originated from growing demand to repurpose secondhand goods, particularly those used by rental business. “Many of these firms eventually found themselves wanting to turn gently used rental items into resales and started asking Rentle for help with creating and managing online resale stores,” he told us.
While Twice Commerce merchants can be anywhere in the world, they have primarily been in Europe to date. North America — especially the U.S. — has been growing rapidly, however, and now half of the merchandise is from U.S. merchants.
Resale has overtaken the rental marketplace side of the business: “Resale merchant customers take up 50-70% of our total customers,” Laine said.
Twice Commerce clients include Rentski, which offers ski-equipment rental in Sweden; U.K.-based outdoor equipment seller and rental service Rab; and Finland-based Motonet, a vehicle parts and equipment seller that also provides a trailer-rental service.
