Tony Coccerino, Nuuly | Modern Retail Vanguard 2024
This is part of the Modern Retail Vanguard, a series highlighting the behind-the-scenes talent powering the world’s top retail brands. More from the series →
Since its 2019 launch Nuuly, owned by parent company Urban Outfitters, Inc., has grown into one of the most popular fashion rental services, hitting 300,000 active subscribers in late November.
As the director of fulfillment, Tony Coccerino is critical to making sure all 300,000 of these subscribers get the right clothes, on time.
“I spent my last 20 years at David’s Bridal, and that was very much a direct-to-store e-commerce kind of business,” Coccerino, who joined Nuuly in 2020 says. Rental, however, is a whole other beast. “It truly feels like a startup business,” Coccerino says. “It’s been a change for me, but it’s been pretty cool.”
Coccerino oversees Nuuly’s two facilities in Bristol, Pennsylvania and Kansas City, Missouri, which each employ 900 people. These facilities are responsible for processing returns, as well as laundering, hanging and inspecting a garment before it goes back out to another subscriber. And Nuuly has certain KPIs for how long it should take a product to get through each part of the process.
“It’s about keeping inventory correct so that when a picker goes to grab the product, it’s there,” Coccerino says. The warehouse team goes through a vigorous 16-point inspection to make sure that each product’s quality is up to standards. If a garment is missing the hook or eye, it is sent to the repair department. If it has a stain on it, it has to be rewashed using the right chemicals.
Most orders are shipped out within two days. “Our goal is always for any orders that are placed to ship them out the next day by the time a UPS truck comes,” Coccerino says.
With all these moving pieces, Coccerino says, “making sure morale’s high is always a big priority.”
Currently, “there is very little automation in what we do,” he says, since hanging and folding garments has to be done by hand. But, some automation is starting to get tested at the Kansas City warehouse. A new buffer system featuring monorails that carry garment bags is being installed. The system will take the six picked pieces and get them ready for employees to send to packing.
“That should save us a lot of money and make us a lot more efficient,” he says. Eventually, the goal is to bring that to the Bristol facility.
Tweaks like these are critical because as a rental service, Nuuly is a rarity in that it’s profitable. Its parent company URBN said during its third-quarter earnings in November that Nuuly just had its most profitable quarter since launching. Revenue grew to $97 million, a 48% year-over-year increase.
“As a five-year-old business, we’re still trying to follow and find those trends to help us forecast better go forward,” Coccerino says.