A Royal Partnership: Chat with Trisha Bantigue and Kathy Zhou of Queenly and Sarah Pinner of Beni

Sarah: Hi, Queenly! Thank you guys so much for joining, I'm so excited to have this conversation. Queenly is one of our partners at Beni, one of our resale marketplace partners, and we're so grateful to businesses like Queenly for making eCommerce accessible online and available to people online. Our goal at Beni is to help highlight them and showcase the amazing inventory that they have on their site. I think we'll just start by doing some intros about ourselves, share a little bit about Queenly and Beni and then maybe chat about resale generally.

Trisha: Sure, I can start! Hi, I'm Trisha. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Queenly, and I graduated from UC Berkeley, and soon afterward I started working in tech. I worked at Facebook and then, most recently, at Uber as an executive recruiter for product and engineering. And this is my lovely co-founder, Kathy.
Kathy: Hi, I'm Kathy. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a double major in computer science and environmental science. I was a full stack engineer at Pinterest for four years. I also worked at Venmo as an intern and at Queenly, I am our CTO and technical co-founder.

Trisha: So, Queenly is a dedicated marketplace for all things formal wear, so prom, Quinceaneras, weddings, girls' night out, pretty much any type of dress we have it for you.

Sarah: I love it. I found some great things on Queenly in recent months, so I'm super excited to be talking with you guys. I feel like I, and Beni as a whole, actually have a lot of overlap with you both! I also graduated from UC Berkeley and then worked in food and agriculture, both with large food and ag companies and then Imperfect Foods, which is really where my focus was set on building products that reduce waste. And then my co-founder, Celine, she's also a software engineer and has a Master's in environmental science. So, very similar I think overall! It’s not always a popular combination, so I think it's cool to see the intersection between tech and sustainability increase and the ways in which you can unlock new opportunities to be impactful, like Queenly and Beni. So, Benni is a browser extension that helps you find and buy secondhand items online by shopping as you normally would. Let's say you're looking for a dress at Nordstrom. You can use the Beni browser extension and we'll show where that same dress or a similar dress exists on secondhand marketplaces online, like Queenly. So, Beni allows you to bring the world of resale directly to you. We'd love to hear from you, and your why. Why resale, why formal wear- what are some things that have surprised you along this journey of getting into eCommerce?

Trisha: I think there are a lot of things that we've learned along the way. We've been on this journey for about three, or four years now. And initially, so how we even decided to focus on formal wear was because of my initial pageant experience. So, in 2013, I decided to join a pageant in order to earn scholarships UC, Berkeley was very expensive for an out-of-state student. So, I came from Las Vegas, Nevada, and I had to figure out so many different ways in order to pretty much pay off my tuition and survive in the very expensive Bay Area. I was just really adamant about getting my college degree because I'll be the first one in my family. So I ended up loving the whole experience of pageants and I did not expect to because it was just like a means to an end. But, I gained a lot of lifelong friendships, and a lot of them are my bridesmaids. And then I gained a lot of like important life skills such as communication, public speaking interview skills, et cetera. And so consistently I just saw that every single woman had the same pain point, which is finding the dress that fits them, that looks good enough, and that they can afford it, because they're very expensive. Pageant gowns can be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars brand new. And then what do you do with it after? Most women only wear dresses once, right? And so in 2018, I started bugging Kathy about my idea of Queenly and for her to join a pageant.

Kathy: And I wasn't too “edumacated” about the whole industry so much because I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. A lot of time people didn't do too many formal events. People even wore sweatpants to like junior prom! So, Trisha convinced me to join my first beauty pageant and it was such an eye-opening experience. It helped me gain self-confidence, gain public speaking skills, but also really learn and love the industry. And so that's why I got to start building with Trisha. And another thing that I'd love to highlight for the two of us and our origin story is that we both connected because we could both came from super similar backgrounds. Trisha with her lower-income immigrant background, her mother had an unfortunate gambling addiction and had to really struggle and pay for college herself. Myself, my family had dealt with a lot of alcohol addictions and so, for Queenly what we really cared about was caring a lot about making dresses affordable because of where we came from. We're immigrants as well and we care a lot about saving money and we care a lot about reducing waste, so that fits together all the pieces of resale.

Sarah: I love that! I think it's such a powerful testament to the power of resale. You know, I think that there are so many win-win-wins in a circular system where you can have a feeling of abundance and have abundance, but do it in a sustainable way where it's not just like, “oh, I wanna feel beautiful, I wanna have a new dress, but I can't afford it, or it's inaccessible to me.” And I think that's the beauty of resale. It’s that there's this amazing thing that exists and maybe somebody doesn't want it or doesn't need it. And yeah, somebody said that they got a free dress from you all, which is so beautiful. I think that's sort of similar to Beni. What we heard when we were starting Beni is that a lot of people would say “ugh, I know I should buy secondhand, but I just don't.” People understood there was all this great stuff out there, but it was really inaccessible. So, they'd end up still buying fast fashion or buying something because it makes them feel good. You know, it makes you feel good to have something new to you, but to also have something affordable. And so our goal is to really make it as accessible to find items like those on Queenly for everybody as it would be to find something new. So, we’re definitely very aligned there!

I'm curious when you guys think about the future of resale and re-eCommerce online, what are the things that most excite you? What are the things that like you think are gonna be big challenges? Where do you, I think it's a big question, but where do you see this world in five years?

Trisha: I think we have a really good trajectory and just traction overall in the past five to 10 years when it comes to resale. I mean, companies such as let's say, Poshmark, Thread Up, and the Real Real, have all set up such a good foundation for companies like us and even other companies. So, many different resale sites can exist and thrive. And I think it's projected to still continuously increase over the next five years because more and more of the new generation, especially millennials and Gen Z, are socially conscious about their purchases. The stigma against resale or secondhand or use, preloved, is going away. And that's really, really great because, in reality, no one cares. If you’re wearing a dress, no one asks” is that brand new or is that resale? How much did you pay for it?” or, “what's that brand?” Most people just go, “Wow, that red dress looks amazing on you! It fits you really well and you look beautiful in it!” So, for us, we're really, really excited about it becoming more of the norm. I'd love to see more influencers and celebrities promote resale instead of just wearing something brand new all the time to events like the Grammys or People Choice Awards. I think it really starts with people at the top setting an example. And some of the challenges, I think Kathy can talk a little bit more about it, but I think the challenges we're facing, which most resale companies do face, unfortunately, are the old guards in the industry where they're a little bit reluctance to transition to resale or to even going online, right?

Kathy: Yeah. The thing is, people have been doing this before technology, before apps and the internet, I mean, people have already been doing this for decades. You wear your sister's clothes, you would swap clothes with your friends, and even before Queenly, part of what inspired Trisha to first start thinking about Queenly is all the Facebook groups where people would try to manually send each other their dresses, and manually pay for dresses. And what's really great about finally putting this together with technology all online is that it makes it more accessible to a ton more people. So, it doesn't seem like the small market that it used to be when it was just your friend's closet. It's millions and millions of people! I think this is the opportunity for all these big brands to embrace resale and modernize themselves by living on platforms alongside people doing resale and being part of that eCommerce ecosystem.

Sarah: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's cool when you were saying, you know, how Poshmark and those businesses set a foundation, and that there's a lot of building on each other and building towards this world of resale being the norm. I think for us at Beni, we see ourselves as so grateful to the folks like Queenly and at all the other marketplaces that are doing the heavy lifting to make it available to people online. And Beni’s goal is really to bring in the people who know that there's not a stigma. And it’s kind of like when you were saying that there's almost the opposite of a stigma. Now, I feel like people love it when they're like, “oh, I found this thing thrifted.” There's a sense of pride in it. But, we found a lot of people who didn't know how to do that. They didn't know where to look. They didn't know like, “I have to open up all these different sites” and “how do I find something that actually works for me?” And so I think it is this continuous evolution of eCommerce and everyone building on each other and working together because that’s the circular system. Everyone does have to work together. So, this would be the brands and the resale marketplaces and the individual people who would be reselling their dresses back into the market. I think there's definitely a lot more to do to make it really like the norm, but it's a really exciting trajectory that we're stoked to be a part of

Trisha: Yeah, and we are too! I'm very excited to be on Beni now!

Sarah: One thing I wanted to mention before I forget is that one of the things with Beni that we're hoping for is to bring in those new thrifters. And so it's September this month and we're doing a secondhand September celebration. So, for anyone kind of who purchases through Beni this month, we'll give up to $20 back as a way to welcome you to the party! So, you can find a dress for homecoming or an upcoming fall wedding. You can find one on Beni and we'll support that purchase! I’m also curious to learn more about Queenly moving forward. Are there any new fun things on the horizon for Queenly that you wanted to share, like features or partnerships or anything like that?

Trisha: Well, recently we just launched our new community feature. This is something that we've thought of for a while. It's pretty much like an online forum that lives inside the Queenly platform. So, our main product is actually our iOS app and feel free to download that in the app store! It’s pretty similar to the Sephora Community Forum as well. We've always focused on the community of Queenly and women helping each other find their dream dress. And so here our users can pretty much like post like, “hey, my homecoming dance is coming up. I have like red hair and pale skin, like what color dress should I wear that would look great on my skin tone?” Something like that! They can also ask questions like “what kind of shoes can I wear with this ball gown?” or “I'm selling this dress, who wants it?” So, we wanted to take the aspects of the Facebook marketplace, but integrate them with the convenience, safety, and security of our platform and have it live there.

Kathy: We're trying to do a lot more alongside communities. We're also doing a lot more social commerce features. One big thing is that we're going to introduce video later on this year. People can upload videos, people can scroll in a more Tik Tok-like feed and we're introducing a lot more social functionality, things like follows and being able to interact more with the people of the Queenly community.

Sarah: I love that! I think the social commerce aspect and kind of the intersection of social commerce and eCommerce is really interesting and something we're continuously thinking about as well because we sort of think about Beni as a tech version of that friend that goes with you when you're thrifting. Because sometimes when you’re in person and thrifting you're like, “I don't know, like it is weird. Is this cool?” or you wonder “how do I actually like find something great in these racks of clothes?” And Benny is sort of like that friend who is there to help you out, but in tech form. I think another really interesting thing about like in person thrifting or even trading hand-me-downs or whatever, is that there is a social aspect of it. Maybe something doesn’t work for you, but it’ll be perfect for your friend. And so we're thinking about how we can capture some of that magic of resale in the online experience. Because I do feel like online resale can feel a little overwhelming. So, I love the idea of using the community feature, using videos, and using a more human aspect to make it more approachable.

Trisha: Exactly!

Sarah: I'm just personally curious if you guys have ever thought about going into men's formal wear and what you think about that.

Speaker 2: Well, we are not opposed to it! We'd love to get Kingly going one day!

Sarah: I love that! Do you guys have any questions that we should talk about or can we just share a little bit more about anything else we want the community to know?

Trisha: Let’s see, well, we'd love to share that we acquired a Quinceanera company. It’s a Quinceanera marketplace called Mi Padrino. And this is our way of expanding into the immigrant communities and cultural attire. So, now we're able to offer more Quinceanera dresses, Quinceanera guest dresses, et cetera. We know that what we want to do is really provide accessibility to all kinds of inventory when it comes to formal wear. I guess that's one that I love to share because it's like our first ever acquisition and we didn't think we would be able to do that this early in our company, but it was the right opportunity and it aligns perfectly with our mission and our platform.

Sarah: That's super cool! Well, this was such a great conversation. I'm sure we could talk for hours about resale and all of the different overlaps, like UC Berkeley, environmental science, and computer science. So, we’ll have to do this again! But thank you so much for taking the time and we're excited to keep pushing the eCommerce revolution forward.

Trisha: Yay, likewise! We're so excited to partner with you. Thank you so much!