Founder Story with Alex, Co-Founder of Encore Shopping

Encore is a conversational AI search and discovery engine for secondhand products. Search hundreds of resale sites, brand marketplaces, and auction sites all on one page.

Encore is a conversational AI search and discovery engine for secondhand products. Search hundreds of resale sites, brand marketplaces, and auction sites all on one page. Encore was founded by Parth Chopra and Alex Ruber.

A conversation with Alex Ruber, Co-Founder of Encore Shopping:

1. What is Encore, and how did it come to be?

My personal experience led to this realization: I was searching for a Sandro leather jacket I loved from a TV show, but the process was fragmented and overwhelming. With too many secondhand and thrift sites, I never knew where to start.

We've built Encore, a search and discovery engine for shopping anything secondhand (think KAYAK for online thrifting), with an initial emphasis on mid- to high-end fashion.

Sifting through countless resale sites to find the right item—size, color, authenticity—is frustrating and time-consuming. This is the key pain point when shopping resale online, especially without specific direction, and it ultimately drove us to build Encore.

We solve this problem with our conversational shopping assistant. By aggregating results from hundreds of resale sites and leveraging LLMs to refine nuanced and complex queries, we surface the most relevant suggestions on one page, making secondhand shopping more personal and cohesive.

It's important to note that the resale market is growing 11x faster than retail, projected to reach $350 billion by 2028. This growth is driven by smarter, more sustainable consumer choices, particularly among Gen Z and women aged 22-45. We address issues like overproduction, overconsumption, and the desire for unique, climate-conscious pieces by simplifying the search and discovery process across hundreds of resale sites, saving users time and ensuring they find the right size, price, style, and authenticity—all on one page.