Yesterday I presented at 1 Million Cups and told a room of founders and neighbors that LiquiDonate is adding repair as a fourth way to route returned and excess inventory. This morning I sat in the audience at Arkade's Coffee SHOP and watched the company that makes it possible.
Retail has a near trillion dollar secret.
According to Optoro, up to 80% of returned and perfectly usable inventory is landfilled each year. That is not damaged junk. That is product someone could use.
LiquiDonate has placed more than 18.9 million items, worth over $130 million in fair market value, with 5,000+ nonprofits and schools. Donation stays at the center of what we do. But I have watched a lot of items come through our flow that were one broken zipper or one loose seam away from full price. Donating that item beats a landfill, but repair gives our software another door to open.
Until now, our platform has routed every return one of three ways: donate it, send it back to the warehouse, or recycle it. It already knows which one wins for a specific retailer, by SKU, category, or price point. Repair adds a fourth branch to that decision. A jacket with a torn seam used to have two realistic options. Donate it as is, or recycle it. Now it can get fixed and go back to the customer, back to the warehouse to be sold again, or on to a nonprofit in better shape than it arrived.
The timing matters. California's SB 707 is putting apparel and textile producers on the hook for what happens to clothing after it is sold. Brands need ways to extend product life, and they need a record showing their actions.
Upkept is building the infrastructure repair that has been missing.
Robin built Upkept in Rogers, a few miles from where I am writing this. Their platform runs the parts of repair that usually break down: intake, pricing, routing, customer communication, and fulfillment. Repair has always been local and one-off. A tailor here, a shoe shop there. Upkept turns it into something a brand can actually plug into. That is the same problem we solved for donation, which is why this partnership makes sense.
We are starting small and close to home. Repair at scale gets built one intake bin at a time.
The circular economy is not one exit.
Donate, return to warehouse, recycle, and now hands-on repair. The circular economy is not a single channel. It is a set of doors, and the job of good software is to pick the right one for each item before it ever hits a truck to the landfill.
Thank you to 1 Million Cups for having me, and to Kathryn Carlisle and the Arkade team for hosting Coffee SHOP and giving Upkept the stage.
If you run returns for an apparel or footwear brand and you are recycling or writing off items that could be fixed, email me at disney@liquidonate.com.
‍
.png)
