A new luxury resale app called High End has just been launched by Melbourne-based entrepreneurs Brooke Marks and Lauren Kennedy.
The resale marketplace began as an invite-only Facebook group in 2014 and has since grown to over 100,000 members.
According to the founders, the new app harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) covering automated authentication. Each brand is studied before the AI solution is individually designed.
Images are then fed into the model and feature engineering is conducted to build an AI authentication model.
The existing High End Facebook group sees more than 16,000 images uploaded each month.
The High End app leverages text recognition, image fingerprinting, and image comparison, and flags counterfeit products listed by dishonest sellers.
A selection of high-profile investors are backing the launch of the app, including Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page and APG & Co director Andrew Michael.
“Recording a total of 30,000 sales on the platform in 2022, High End demonstrates Australia’s appetite for high fashion with the highest performing brands on the site including Chanel, Hermes, Prada, Bottega Veneta and Loewe,” Marks and Kennedy said.
“The appeal of a more sustainable and affordable entry into luxury is also becoming increasingly popular for retail buyers, especially in today’s inflationary economy. And for our sellers, the resale market offers an additional income stream on the side.
“We are excited to announce the launch of the High End app as the next step to reshape the future of resale fashion, leading the way to more accessible luxury items.”
The app launched exclusively on November 20 to existing Facebook members, and went public on November 26.