If you’re an avid shopper chances are you’ve clicked over to a consignment store or two in search of some vintage, rare or unusual pieces. And you’re not alone. With the growth of reliable online resellers and luxury consignment stores, it seems that almost everyone is skimming the pages of sites like SnobSwap, The RealReal and Vestiaire looking for something unique and special. We all have our favorite shopping destinations, but for popular bags, jewelry and accessories, we love to shop Portero. The site specializes in authentic pre-owned luxury, which means Chanel, Hermès, Celine and Dior are all mainstays at this online boutique. With over a decade in luxury consignment, the site offers a stellar authentication process, on-call stylists to help you pick and choose the best bag, and an international shopping service that can track down the rarest and most coveted of pieces.
Since its inception in 2004, the site has reinvented and refined itself, most recently at the hands of Alexis Clarbour, the Executive Director of Portero who came on board in 2013. With a background in finances, Clarbour was originally a NASDAQ trader on Wall Street before realizing her calling in the world of luxury. She spent five years at Waterworks, partnering with top architects and interior decorators before working with the Metropolitan Opera, redesigning their retail space, both in-store and online. She spent only a short time at Circa Jewels before they purchased Portero in 2013. “Because I had experience in all realms of luxury goods and e-commerce experience they asked me to run Portero,” she told JustLuxe. “It’s been a really rewarding experience, it’s really amazing to have a brand basically be put in your hands in that way. We’ve done a lot of work since then in terms of the type of merchandise that’s on the site, the way the site looks and the experience, the customer service experience.”
And it didn’t take long for Clarbour to clean house. She cut categories she felt weren’t relevant to their niche customers, took items off the site that weren’t up to standard and began researching exactly who the Portero customer was. “Even if there was a piece of jewelry, and it wasn’t very tasteful, for lack of a better word, we took it down. There were a lot of things we took down, because this is not who the Portero client is,” she explained. “And I think that what we’ve done since then is working, we’ve in the best year we’ve ever had in Portero’s history. And the luxury market … is very volatile right now, but I think that our strategy of really being the best of the best is working.” She notes that the demographic of Portero clients are the one percent, predominantly women between the ages of 35 to 55.
For both Clarbour and her customers, quality, exclusivity and authenticity are top priorities. “At Portero, for us, we are a highly-curated site. Everything that’s on our site has been vetted by our team to deem whether it’s worthy or not. And when I say worthy I don’t mean to sound snobbish, it’s just our average dollar transaction is $2,000; that’s really high in any realm,” she said. “But that tells you something about our customer and what they’re really looking for in Portero. And what they want is to know, first of all, when we say something is pristine or excellent that they can trust that. Obviously authenticity is the number one priority at Portero … We wouldn’t be in business this long if we didn’t take that to the highest degree of seriousness.”
To source the best and most trusted products, they receive their pre-owned pieces from two major outlets: Portero clients and vetted resellers around the world. “We have a direct consignment business so if a client or customer has some items that they no longer wear or use they can absolutely consign them directly with us, we have a department to do that,” she explained. “That being said we also recognize there are other bags that are out there that are just as good and we want to give the best selection to our clients. As such we work with vetted resellers all over the world. Most of these relationships are longstanding and they love Portero because they sell on Portero. And they understand that if we trust them, they’re worthy of that trust as well. But that also goes into authenticity, you need to work with the best people out there.”
Those looking to clear their closets, only need to fill out a quick form to sell with Portero. Products are sent into their New York offices where an on-site team of authenticators inspect accessories and prep them for resale. “All of the items that are consigned with us do go through this office [for authentication], but we do have offices and people we work with around the world,” Clarbour explained. To make sure that both seller and shoppers are getting not only the best value, but also the best product, they offer the Portero Promise, a guarantee of both the authenticity and condition of each product they sell. “If the authenticity ever comes into question that’s where the Portero Promise comes into play,” she said. “If a client thinks an item isn’t correct for some reason we’ll send a label, have it sent in here, and then have it authenticated by our in-house staff. If that’s not good enough, if for some reason they’re not confident, we can also get a third-party authenticator.”
Clarbour is quick to add that clients requesting second or third authentication processes are rare, due to their diligence and stringent curation of the site. She almost laughs when asked what sets Portero apart from competing resale sites. “I always like to focus on what Portero does well and not so much about what everybody else does—but I will say this: some sites are like the Wild West and they just want product; they just want everything,” she explained. “We don’t take everything. There are many items that don’t make it on to our site because it doesn’t fit into our standards.” On the site, each piece is broken down by its condition, ranging from good to pristine. A quick glance at their current selection and one can see even good condition bags are categorized as such due to interior wear or the natural patina on leather bags. “We always want to surprise the client, the customer on the other end, in a good way. You always want to over-deliver, not underwhelm.”
In addition to their online offerings, Portero also has a concierge service called Find It For Me, where clients can request certain bags, accessories or color combinations, and they’ll tap into their global sources to locate the piece, an especially helpful service when you’re in the market for a rare product. “When things are hot, hot, hot, they’re hard, hard, hard to find!” she laughed. “I have somebody looking for the Chanel graffiti backpack in gray, it’s one of those funny things where we could have been sitting here two months ago and we might have had one and now we don’t, and no one else has them.” So far she has yet to let a client down. Portero has found every piece they’ve been on the hunt for, with the longest acquisition taking them around six months. “I have people that are sources that are looking for one as we speak, and once we find it, which we will, we can get it for that client.” In addition to reaching out to their international resellers, they’ll also speak with their most trusted consigners to see if they have one in their closet they’re looking to part with.
To make sure that they do have some of the most popular looks on hand for purchase, Clarbour and her team educate themselves on both the latest trends, and the most beloved vintage designs. “I don’t ever want to say something is out because … things fluctuate. You have to really understand what’s happening not only in the secondary markets, but in the primary markets,” she explained. “If the brand has a new creative director or something happened in some way, maybe a certain brand has a resurgence. Those are things we have to watch for because we’ll also notice that all of a sudden we could come in and sell 30 pieces of a certain brand that three months ago may not have been moving at all.” Rather than curating pieces due to current popularity, she emphasizes that it’s more important for them to be appropriate for her clients. “I like to say products on the site have to fall into two buckets. Either they have to be a great value to retail … or, the item has to be something that is hard to find, collectable or rare. We try and say that if it doesn’t fall into one or both of those categories, and it’s in excellent condition, it’s not for us.”
While Portero has been around for over a decade, Clarbour knows they still have room to grow. Competing online consignment shops like The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and Vaunte, all have similar products and authentication promises, but she stresses that their discerning eye, global reach and multi-level authentication process set them far ahead of other sellers. “I think there is trepidation in the secondary market for a number of reasons and that’s why we have to do it better,” she explained. “We are currently working on an app. As we all know mobile is becoming more and more important. Our site is responsive and it looks great on mobile, but the app is where to go so we’re working on that. And I think really for us, it just goes to continuously being the best and really catering to that one niche customer that expects a lot from us, but in a good way!”
