By Rotation fashion startup wants to help you rent out your closet

By Rotation, a U.K.-based clothing rental app, hopes to eliminate the need for fast fashion by making peer-to-peer clothing rental mainstream in the United States.

The startup expanded to the United States in May. By Rotation aims to grow usage in New York City this year before expanding to two other major U.S. cities next year.

By Rotation may sound like another rental service such as Rent the Runway, Armoire or Nuuly, but its founder and CEO Eshita Kabra-Davies is quick to point out that its peer-to-peer structure more closely resembles sharing-economy companies such as Airbnb and Uber.

By Rotation has taken a social media-style approach to building its community of lenders and renters by encouraging dialogue and giving users the option of receiving notifications when their favorite lenders list new items.

Individual users decide if they are willing to ship their items to users in other states. Some will offer only hyperlocal pickup rentals.

“The vision is really to be able to walk three streets down and pick up a rental, even last minute, because you have a few lenders in your neighborhood that are the same size as you, and we’ve already seen that happen in London,” Kabra-Davies said.

The digital fashion rental market is expected to more than double in value from $1.3 billion in 2021 to $2.8 billion by 2030, according to data from Verified Market Research. Meanwhile, online resale is expected to reach $38 billion by 2027, according to ThredUp’s 2023 Resale Report. 

Despite the expected growth, online fashion rental and resale has proven to be a difficult business, especially on Wall Street. The challenges have come partly because many in the space hold a lot of inventory and spend a lot of money to do so. 

Shares of Rent the Runway, ThredUp and The RealReal are all down about 90% since the companies went public. All three companies have yet to become profitable.

By Rotation does not own a single item listed on its platform, making it a standout among the other major rental and resale players in the U.S. Instead, the inventory and listings come from the people using the app. Kabra-Davies describes it as a “very cost-efficient business model” that is “completely different to what the incumbent players are doing in the U.S.”

“No one is doing what we’re doing,” according to Kabra-Davies. “We don’t need to sell. We don’t need to tell people, like, please list your items, we will give you money for it; nor do we need to buy any items to build up that supply.”

In the U.K., By Rotation has more than 330,000 registered users with more than 68,000 listings. U.S. users have already listed more than 1,800 items across at least 15 states, according to Kabra-Davies.

The growth is happening organically, she said. The startup plans to start marketing in the U.S. this summer.

As the app grows, the startup is taking steps to ensure renters are trustworthy and lenders’ items are…