Retail software startup Another has secured a $2.5 million seed round led by Anthemis FIL and Westbound, betting that smarter data and orchestration can help brands recover more value from excess and off-channel inventory. The company’s platform aims to give retailers real-time visibility, pricing intelligence, and coordination tools so unsold goods move to the right secondary channel at the right time—without defaulting to deep-discount liquidation.
Why Excess Inventory Is a Margin Killer for Retailers
Even the best-run retailers get stuck with stock. Returns surge, seasons change, demand whipsaws, and merchandising bets don’t always land. In the U.S., retailers processed an estimated $743 billion in returns in 2023—roughly 14.5% of total sales, according to the National Retail Federation and Appriss Retail. Each return or overstayed SKU triggers a chain of costs: storage, handling, markdowns, and ultimately write-downs that sap gross margin.
Brands typically route excess to off-price partners and secondary markets—from Nordstrom Rack and TJ Maxx to digital liquidation platforms—where timing and price sensitivity are extreme. The challenge isn’t a lack of buyers; it’s the operational fog. Data lives in separate returns systems, ERPs, WMSs, and spreadsheets. A single style might be scattered across four warehouses and mixed conditions (new, open-box, refurbished), making it hard to predict recovery rates or determine the optimal channel before the value clock runs out.
Inside Another’s Platform for Smarter Disposition
Another connects into a retailer’s existing stack—order management, warehouse systems, returns tools, and merchandising databases—to centralize SKU-level status, costs, and demand signals. On top of that data layer, the software models “where to move, when, and at what price,” producing decisions such as “allocate 2,000 units to Off-Price A this week at X recovery, hold 500 for direct markdown next month, divert 300 to recommerce,” and automates the routing and documentation to execute.
Key features typically include dynamic pricing recommendations, channel scoring, constraint-aware allocations (think capacity at a 3PL or a retailer’s DC), and configurable rules to protect brand integrity and MAP policies. The workflow handles nuts-and-bolts tasks like lot creation, ASN generation, EDI messaging, and label/packing standards that reduce chargebacks once goods hit secondary partners. For many operators, gaining a single source of truth across returns, inventory health, and off-channel orders is the difference between a measured disposition plan and last-minute fire sales.
Competitive Landscape and Strategy in Recommerce
The secondary market is crowded but fragmented. Marketplaces such as Ghost and B-Stock connect sellers and buyers of surplus goods, while software players like Optoro focus on returns and reverse logistics optimization. Another positions itself upstream of liquidation, aiming to prevent forced bulk sell-offs by improving recovery earlier in the decision chain. That’s appealing to brands seeking both margin preservation and less channel conflict.
There’s margin to chase. Industry analyses from firms like McKinsey have shown that advanced retail analytics can lift gross margin 1–3% and accelerate sell-through by double digits when deployed against pricing and inventory decisions. In off-channel specifically, more accurate lots and documentation also reduce accessorial fees and chargebacks, protecting recovery that otherwise leaks during execution. Secondary partners benefit, too, when inbound product arrives in the right mix, quantities, and timing to match their floor cycles.
Sustainability Tailwinds Reshaping Retail Disposition
The environmental case for better disposition is strengthening. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has highlighted that a truckload of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second worldwide. Policy is tightening as well: France’s anti-waste law (AGEC) restricts the destruction of unsold non-food goods, and European proposals around textile waste and producer responsibility are advancing. For brands reporting under expanding ESG frameworks, fewer write-offs and more recommerce can translate into improved emissions intensity and waste metrics.
By nudging inventory to higher-value, longer-life outcomes—direct discount, off-price, rental, refurbishment, or donation—software like Another’s can shift the mix away from destruction or low-recovery liquidation, balancing profit with footprint reduction.
What the Funding Fuels for Product and Partnerships
The seed capital will accelerate product development and hiring, with emphasis on data science, integrations, and partnerships with 3PLs and off-price buyers. Early focus areas include apparel, footwear, and home goods—categories with high return rates and seasonal volatility. Expect build-outs of more EDI adapters, returns-system connectors, and planning tools that simulate recovery under multiple scenarios before a buy is finalized.
Investors are watching a handful of operational KPIs: days inventory outstanding for excess, gross recovery rate by channel, chargebacks per lot, and the share of units diverted from liquidation to higher-value routes. If Another can consistently improve recovery while lowering cycle time and waste, it will have carved out a defensible niche between existing returns platforms and downstream marketplaces.
Amid unpredictable demand and mounting sustainability scrutiny, the race to make off-channel inventory smarter—not just cheaper—has begun. Another’s fresh funding is a bet that better data and orchestration can turn a persistent cost center into a measurable source of value.
