Excess inventory is a fairly common fact in the fashion industry, as most brands don’t sell everything they produce. For retailers trying to move overstock, there are plentiful channels to pick from—from off-price retailers and secondhand stores to donation and liquidation. But the process of managing these secondary sales and inventory movements has typically been manual and time consuming, says Corina Marshall, founder of artificial intelligence-powered off-price operation platform Another.
While working at companies like LVMH and Estée Lauder, Marshall experienced the slog of managing inventory bound for off-price and other secondary market channels, which Another calls “off-channel.” Founded in 2024, today Another is helping around 30 customers across categories like apparel, footwear and beauty—ranging from mass-market to luxury and from mid-market to Fortune 500 firms—make their off-channel operations smarter and simpler through centralized data management and automation that are purpose-built for off-price.
On Jan. 15, Another announced it had closed a $2.5 million-plus seed round, led by investors Anthemis FIL and Westbound. With this added capital—which brings the company’s total funding raised to-date to $2.9 million—Another plans to grow its team and also put funds toward further product development, with a new product offering planned for a summer 2026 launch.
“Off-channel is finally having its moment, and we are honored to be at the forefront of technology support,” said Marshall. “Having experienced it first-hand, we understand just how fast-paced, unpredictable and demanding it can be.”
Another founder Corina Marshall with chief technology officer Xuan Yu.
As Marshall explained, compared to the typically long-lead fashion production cycle, off-price moves at a quicker pace. Much of the inventory management technology available is geared toward conventional retail, focusing on wholesale or full-price sales. In the secondary market, not having the right decision-making tools can cost companies. If they miss the window where goods can sell to an off-price partner, they must be able to quickly pivot toward another stream like donation to avoid destruction—which comes with an environmental cost—or liquidation, which erodes margins. Additionally, the longer stock sits in a warehouse, the less value it holds.
“Many times, brands leave revenue and margin on the table because they lack insight into a product’s value over time, the right moment to move inventory and the associated opportunity cost,” Marshall told Sourcing Journal. “What happens today is that too much time passes between each step of the off-channel inventory funnel, making it difficult to move products to the destinations that are most favorable for brands and retailers.”
Another can integrate with companies’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or they can upload the data about their available to sell inventory through a template. The stock could be finished goods, returns or samples. This information can then be organized and tagged in the system, including indicating whether prices are negotiable. From there, they can allocate their merchandise to a specific partner or move it to a different geographic location.
Over time, Another is able to generate automated suggestions or models of what impact a particular off-channel decision would make based on past transactions. For instance, the system can predict margins or sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs). Clients can also set rules, such as margin thresholds, allowing for some automated transaction approvals while triggering manual review for anything outside the benchmark. Having noted the importance of speed in secondary decision-making, Marshall shared that Another has reduced its users’ manual processing time by 84 percent.
Another challenge Marshall has witnessed is fragmentation, both among channels and between teams, such as warehouse and corporate staff. Even off-price and charity teams may not know what each other is doing, which could leave potential opportunities for sales or tax breaks on the table. “I knew there had to be a better way—one that connects teams, highlights departmental, team and individual impact and improves the bottom line while enabling more sustainable decisions,” she said.
In addition to connecting teams within one company, Another’s platform enables retailers to invite and connect with secondary merchandise recipients within its environment. This allows brands to send proposals of inventory lists and request payment from partners, and partners can also request inventory.
This collaborative approach plays into Another’s name. “There’s always another way and another person to touch the process of this inventory moving,” said Marshall. “Different partners have to touch it externally, internally, and there’s always another way to look at the inventory that you’re sitting on. So instead of being so siloed, and having one incentive, it’s like we’re all coming together, we’re looking at it cohesively and being really strategic about how to move through it.”
Off-price is a big business, expected to reach $668 billion by 2032, according to Coherent Market Insights. Helping to fuel this growth is plentiful inventory; Another’s largest inventory move to-date for a single client was over $15 million.
“Off price isn’t necessarily cannibalizing the full-price customer,” said Marshall. “They shop very differently, they have different demographics, and this division has been overlooked, and it’s highly lucrative. So every single organization that I’ve worked for, most of the time off price is kind of keeping these companies afloat and profitable. It’s just somewhat taboo.”
Marshall sees off-channel as a means to reduce the impact of the industry’s intentional overproduction. Another encourages “responsible” decisions about excess inventory by linking the financial and environmental benefits of the secondary market. “For companies to truly invest in sustainability, it ultimately has to be driven by improvements in inventory efficiency and financial performance,” said Marshall. “We’ve been able to align those two goals, and that’s what makes this so exciting. We’re just getting started.”
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