Press play on the Beyond Threads podcast to hear how innovative start-up Rimoda is delivering its ambitious circular vision with the support of our Bscale logistics offering.
Start-ups in the fashion space often face a critical challenge: transitioning from a breakthrough concept to scalable business operations. This was certainly the case for Rimoda, a Netherlands-based circular innovator with a plan to address fashion’s waste and returns problem. In part two of our Beyond Threads interview, Ribal Mahdi, founder of Rimoda, talks to host Erik Janssen Steenberg about how strategic logistics partnerships can accelerate growth and support start-ups to deliver on their vision.
Read on to learn more about how Rimoda overcame the practical challenges of implementing its advanced, AI-supported e-commerce marketplace for fashion resale.
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AI-powered simplicity: Making fashion resale accessible to all
One of Rimoda’s unique points of value is the ease of use that it brings to the circular fashion space from the consumer perspective. By simply uploading a photo of their unwanted garments, which is then analysed by Rimoda’s AI system, shoppers can receive an immediate discount. Users then take the clothes to a convenient drop-off point. “With AI, we can offer customers immediate value for their unwanted clothes,” explains Ribal, creating what Erik describes as “a slam-dunk deal for the consumer.”
From start-up vision to scalable operations
However, no matter how promising the concept, the success of any start-up venture depends to a large extent on its operational execution, including logistics. While many emerging companies will find themselves unable to access enterprise-level logistics and warehousing services due to minimum order requirements, some providers are changing the game. For example, Bleckmann’s Bscale solution provides growing companies with plug-and-play access to the same facilities and services used by its major clients.
This access is proving pivotal in Rimoda’s ongoing growth journey, over the short and long term. “When choosing your partners, don’t choose based on where you are today,” Ribal continues. “Instead, choose your partners based on where you want to be in five years. You want partners that are able to scale with you when you are ready to scale, but at the same time act like your safety net when things go wrong.” This ‘operational unburdening’ is key to the value that third-party logistics (3PL) provide to such fast-growing companies.
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The agility to outcompete in a challenging market
The days when sustainability was a niche concern in fashion are long gone, with many more dedicated providers and brands entering the space. While this is certainly positive from an environmental perspective, it means that start-ups like Rimoda are under increasing pressure to distinguish their offering from that of the competition. Winning the battle for shoppers’ wallets, therefore, means providing a better end-to-end experience.
This is where solutions like Bscale can be a key asset, supporting customer excellence. “Innovation is all very well, but after we have the MVP (minimum viable product), what we have to always think about is the transition from innovation to competitiveness”, Ribal concludes. “To achieve that, we need to have the right partners, and I think this is where a partner like Bscale fits in perfectly, because it will join us in our scaling journey.”
Press play on the Beyond Threads podcast to get more insights from Ribal on what it takes to transform a smart idea like Rimoda into a fast-scaling operational reality.
Transcript
Erik Janssen Steenberg: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Threads podcast by Bleckmann. As always, I’m your host, Erik Janssen Steenberg, and we’ll be taking you on a journey through what is developing and what the latest trends are in supply chain management and logistics—the world we operate in—with a particular focus on the fashion and lifestyle sector.
Today, we’re going to be talking about Rimoda. Rimoda is a new company founded by Ribal Mahdi, who is also my guest today.
Ribal, thank you very much for being here.
Ribal Mahdi: Good morning, Erik, and thank you for the lovely introduction.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: Thank you.
We want to learn more about this Dutch brand—let’s emphasize that, a Dutch brand.
We want to explore how you came up with the idea, what you saw in the market, and what led you to conclude that a company like Rimoda was both needed and a very good idea.
Could you start by introducing yourself, telling us what you’re doing at the moment, and sharing more about Rimoda as a company?
Ribal Mahdi: Sure.
My name is Ribal Mahdi. I’m the founder of Rimoda, an AI-enabled circular marketplace for unwanted fashion.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: So we already have the buzzword in there: AI.
Ribal Mahdi: Yes, it’s very much part of it.
We are based in The Hague, here in the Netherlands.
What inspired me to start Rimoda was my firm belief that impact-first, for-profit business models are the way forward for a future-fit economy.
I want to prove that impact and profit can go hand in hand, and that with the right approaches we can actually transform fashion waste into wealth.
Ultimately, my objective is to bring back the true value of fashion.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: Right.
With that idea in mind, when you looked at our sector and at the market, did you see a distinct gap?
Was there no company or trend already addressing that gap?
Ribal Mahdi: Looking at it from a macro perspective, I noticed that many multinational organizations are simply too large and too slow to adopt circular business models that are scalable enough to create the desired change.
That meant, in my opinion, there was a need for bottom-up approaches driven by innovation.
Looking at it from a micro perspective, I saw that brands, consumers, and society all share the same pain point: unwanted fashion.
Our current linear models are largely based on exchanging value.
I saw an opportunity to create a new circular, closed-loop model based on sharing value between brands, consumers, and society.
And that is how I came up with Rimoda.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: That is, of course, a different approach from what we have traditionally seen.
But with all due respect, starting a new business is a bold move.
It takes courage and a lot of stamina.
If we look at the brands Bleckmann works with, many of them have been around for decades and have a great deal of expertise in-house.
At what point were you convinced that the solution and service you had in mind were actually viable?
That’s the difficult part.
Ribal Mahdi: Yes.
We are now only a few years away from the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda, yet we remain far from the desired results.
On the one hand, sustainability and the SDGs have not fully lived up to expectations, perhaps because the SDGs tell us what we should do.
This is where circularity comes in, in my opinion.
Circularity gives us practical ways of implementing those ambitions.
It tells us how we can actually achieve them.
That is where my perspective comes from: circularity and circular fashion business models can help bridge that gap and move us towards our sustainability goals.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: So what you’re saying is that rather than simply being reactive, you want to be proactive.
But to do that, we also need to look at circularity in a different way.
So the obvious question is: how do you look at it?
What is circular fashion, in your opinion?
Ribal Mahdi: Exactly, and thank you for asking that question.
I’ve been looking at the R-ladder.
It has given us a wealth of knowledge and has inspired innovators and policymakers around the world to accelerate the adoption of circularity.
However, it is still modeled in the shape of a ladder.
In other words, it is still presented as a linear model.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: For the people listening who are thinking, “Wait, what is the R-ladder?”—can you explain it in a couple of sentences?
Ribal Mahdi: Yes.
To keep it simple, the R-ladder is a framework that defines a series of actions we can take to accelerate circularity, such as reuse, repair, remanufacturing, recycling, and so on.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: There you go.
Ribal Mahdi: But because it is represented as a ladder, I still see it as a linear shape.
That is why I came up with a more circular model from my own perspective.
To create a circle, I use a triangle with three different points or stakeholders.
In my case, those stakeholders are consumers, brands, and society.
When we are able to create shared value between those three stakeholders, we can create a circular, closed-loop model.
And that is exactly what I am trying to achieve.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: So you are trying to encourage the sector—or at least the brands you work with—to adopt another way of thinking about circularity.
It’s no longer a one-way street, moving up or down a ladder.
Instead, you have a broader network of possibilities because everybody can connect with everybody else.
Ribal Mahdi: Exactly.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: That makes sense.
But for a brand to adopt that model and adapt to it, it can require quite a significant change.
How does Rimoda help make that change possible?
Ribal Mahdi: I don’t want to reinvent the wheel in that respect.
As humans, we tend to think in a linear way, and companies are also structured in a linear way.
So I built the Rimoda model in such a way that consumers and brands can enter the ecosystem through a simple, familiar, linear process.
I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.
If you’re a brand, you list your products.
If you’re a consumer, you simply upload pictures of clothes you no longer want.
But once you become part of the ecosystem and transactions start taking place within it, the outcomes are circular and traceable.
So you enter the ecosystem in the familiar way you’re already used to, but you benefit from a circular model.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: Of course, not everybody is immediately positive when they see all these developments around circularity.
A lot of people are concerned about greenwashing.
Many companies promote something as the best thing since sliced bread, but when you look deeper, you sometimes think, “Actually, this isn’t such a big deal.”
Why is Rimoda different?
How is your approach different from more traditional resale and second-hand marketplaces?
Ribal Mahdi: I aim to be different because I’m creating a closed-loop business model that is able to trace and track every single item of clothing that enters the ecosystem in a transparent way.
I believe other organizations are making tremendous efforts to accelerate circularity, of course.
And I always believe in people’s goodwill.
If an organization fails to achieve its circular goals, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is deliberately greenwashing.
Perhaps something is missing.
Perhaps it isn’t doing enough.
Or perhaps it simply fails to achieve genuine circularity despite having the intention to do so.
If we look at current e-commerce platforms that are primarily peer-to-peer marketplaces, they mainly focus on extending a product’s life through reuse.
They are effectively ticking one box of the R-ladder.
But within that kind of business model, they often fail to create a consolidated circular model.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: More of a complete circular ecosystem.
Ribal Mahdi: Exactly.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: Understood.
While you were thinking about the right way to set up the company, design the solution, and build your processes, you were of course talking to brands.
But you were also talking to consumers.
When you look at their opinions and at consumer behavior as a whole, what surprised you about the way people think about circularity in fashion?
Ribal Mahdi: We are seeing accelerating demand for second-hand fashion globally.
The market is expected to grow significantly towards 2030.
That is already very positive news.
But it is also notable that much of this growth is being driven by younger generations.
These young consumers are environmentally conscious.
They have grown up hearing terms like circularity and sustainability.
They are also influencing the buying decisions of their parents.
And they often place collective positive action above purely individual benefits.
I think this is a very important target segment that brands should recognize, understand, and retain within their marketing strategies.
And that is exactly what Rimoda aims to support.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: What you just said about younger generations influencing older generations is absolutely true.
My children are 17 and 19, and since they were young teenagers they have influenced the way I approach buying fashion.
As a family, they increasingly have a say in our choices and influence me.
So I think you’re right.
Is that also what you see when you look at communities and consumer behavior shaping the future of circularity?
Or does it work the other way around?
Ribal Mahdi: Yes, absolutely.
The future of circularity will be based on collaboration between communities and consumers.
We can use the Netherlands as an example.
I think the Netherlands is a pioneer in promoting a shared economy between communities and consumers.
Municipalities, for example, play an important role in supporting and promoting circular business models.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: We’ve learned a lot about Rimoda.
I think a lot of listeners will now want to investigate what you’re doing in more detail and how you’re helping push this green wave forward.
We’ve also learned a lot about you and what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning.
So thank you very much for this conversation.
In my opinion, it was a very good discussion and definitely something we now need to digest.
For our listeners and viewers: we’ve been talking to Ribal, and we now know much more about Rimoda.
Part two will focus more specifically on the partnership between Rimoda and Bleckmann.
How have we helped Ribal design his processes and turn them into reality?
It’s one thing to have an idea.
It’s another thing to implement that idea and actually realize your dream.
Thank you very much for being here today, Ribal.
Of course, I’ll be talking to you again in part two.
But for the listeners and viewers who already feel the urge to reach out, how can they contact you?
Ribal Mahdi: They can reach me through LinkedIn. My name is Ribal Mahdi.
Or they can visit Rimoda’s website at www.rimoda.nl.
Erik Janssen Steenberg: There you go.
Thank you, my friend.
And thank you to everybody for being here today.
Make sure you tune in for part two.
Also make sure to follow Bleckmann so that you’re automatically kept up to date on trends and developments in the world of fashion and lifestyle supply chain management.
Thank you again. Talk soon.
