This story was first reported on and published by Glossy sibling site Modern Retail.
Spotted: Luxury resale marketplace The RealReal has launched a Gossip Girl-style Substack newsletter, penned by an anonymous “RealGirl.”
But it’s not just a fun marketing stunt — The RealReal is one of the first major brands to establish a presence on Substack, a platform largely dominated by independent writers and journalists. While brands have dabbled with Substack in other ways, like with sponsored posts, The RealReal’s move is one of the first times that a brand has launched a Substack under its own name.
The RealReal’s newsletter launched with its first post on Feb. 7. The RealReal’s Substack is free to subscribe to, and for now, there are no plans to add a paywall. New posts will drop twice a month and readers can expect a mix of resale hacks, trend analyses and just the right amount of light-hearted industry gossip. As the RealGirl put it, “Here, we can share our TRR secrets.”
For The RealReal, Substack is an opportunity to deepen brand loyalty without the typical sales pitch. To marketing experts, The RealReal’s bet on Substack shows how industry players are looking for new corners of the Internet to connect organically with their customer base, especially as the future of TikTok — the go-to for organic marketing — hangs in the balance. Still, the question remains whether the RealGirl will spark a new era of brand-driven Substack content or remain an outlier in the space.
The RealReal diehards
The decision to launch a branded Substack was informed by a desire to tap into the existing fashion audience on the platform, according to Kristen Naiman, The RealReal’s chief creative officer.
“There’s already a thriving community of fashion Substackers, and many of them are diehard RealReal users,” Naiman told Modern Retail in an interview. “We wanted to be part of that dialogue.”
Indeed, it’s clear from the newsletter’s initial post that existing customers of The RealReal are the target audience. The newsletter’s anonymous author asks readers, “Do you check The RealReal religiously, every day, twice a day? Is your ‘Obsessions’ page a secret window to your soul? Have you scrolled through so many pages of old Celine that you can correctly identify the Michael Kors era with just one glance? Same.”
So, who’s the mystery author behind The RealReal’s Subsack newsletter? Crucially, she is a longtime RealReal user — not an employee. Naiman was tight-lipped about the details. But she said the company chose a passionate RealReal customer who understands the brand. The vetting process wasn’t lengthy, either, she added.
“We wanted someone who’s a superfan and therefore knows the ins and outs of The RealReal,” Naiman said. “They’re at liberty to say everything and say it outside the confines of what we can and can’t say — meaning, they can criticize us.”
That candor is central to the newsletter’s ethos. The RealGirl doesn’t exist to only hype The RealReal —her role is to dissect it, praise it, roast it and analyze its place in the fashion and resale industry. If a mannequin on the site is styled with a backward shirt, she’ll call it out. If a new search feature improves the user experience, she’ll champion it.
“There’s a way that the RealGirl can take a voice about the brand that’s really trustworthy, and for us, that is where our authenticity lives,” Naiman said.
As for what subscribers can expect in their inboxes, one goal of the newsletter is to help RealReal shoppers refine their resale game. For instance, search can be a hurdle on resale apps where users have millions of SKUs for users to wade through. With Substack, The RealReal will share tips and tricks their customers should know, including advanced search strategies and hacks for snagging rare finds.
Competitors have tried to tackle the search issue in other ways. Last year, secondhand apparel platform ThredUp rolled out AI-powered search tools to help customers find what they want more easily. Resale platform Poshmark is also leveraging the technological know-how of its parent company Naver, known as the “Google of South Korea,” to refine how customers search for products.
“Shopping on The RealReal is as much an art as it is a science,” Naiman said. “Everyone has their own approach. Some use it as a research tool. Others treat it like an infinite-scroll treasure hunt.”
The RealGirl will also write behind-the-scenes takes on The RealReal, such as candid takes on the company’s inventory, curation process and unexpected discoveries — like what happens when a seller forgets something in a handbag. Other fashion Substackers and RealReal users will occasionally contribute, either via interviews or guest posts.
First-mover advantage
To Lia Haberman, who writes the marketing newsletter “ICYMI,” the launch of the RealGirl is notable, in part, because of the lack of other branded Substack newsletters.
“Everybody has been waiting and watching to see what brands are going to take advantage of the community that’s on Substack,” Haberman said. “The RealReal is going to benefit from being one of the first brands to get on there and launch a Substack under their own name.”
While email newsletters have been a longtime staple of e-commerce marketing, The RealReal’s Substack is starkly different from a standard promotional blast in that it’s less about discount codes or company announcements and more about storytelling. Haberman compared The RealReal’s Substack to organic social media, like TikTok and YouTube videos, except in written form.
Just as marketers have leveraged TikTok to raise brand awareness, often through unpaid organic content that goes viral, The RealReal’s Substack “is about being in the zeitgeist,” Haberman said. “For a brand, this is a really valuable opportunity to show people a different side of you beyond the ads, the promotions, the coupons, the paid social or the email marketing.”
It remains to be seen whether to not other companies will follow with their own branded Substacks. “A lot of clients have been asking me, ‘Where are the brands on Substack?’ If The RealReal pulls this off, we’ll see more companies experimenting with long-form storytelling here.”
However, Substack isn’t necessarily for every brand.
“The mistake some brands might make is treating this like an email marketing campaign,” Haberman said. “Substack readers expect high-quality content, not just promotions. Brands will need to invest in storytelling and editorial talent to make it work.”
