If, like me, you’re a longtime fan of children’ clothes model Tea Collection, you’ve in all probability observed that the clothes lasts remarkably lengthy. I’m all the time amazed when I’ve items I’m not embarrassed at hand down, even after my baby has had her means with them for a number of years.
So it is smart that the model has launched Tea Rewear, a market for getting and promoting Tea. Following within the footsteps of Levi’s and Patagonia, Tea is the primary children clothes model to host its personal resale website.
“I’m very blissful that is the 12 months we lastly figured this out,” stated Leigh Rawdon, founder and CEO of Tea. “One in every of our commitments early on was to make garments that didn’t disintegrate. The perfect factor we are able to do for the planet is to make garments that don’t find yourself in a landfill.”
The timing couldn’t be higher with Earth month starting at this time. To sell your clothing on Rewear, you’ll be able to {photograph} and ship objects your self (for the next fee). Or, Tea and its associate Kidizen will pair you with a vendor who will do this give you the results you want. Lastly, you’ll be able to commerce your clothes in for $5 credit score per merchandise on new Tea. You may mail your trade-ins or drop them off at choose Tea Assortment retailers in Austin, Charlotte, Philadelphia or San Francisco, with extra places to return as this system grows.
Tea has lengthy hoped to take part in reselling the model’s personal kinds, however for a lot of causes—pricing, expertise, desirous to be delicate to Tea’s already enthusiastic resell group—it was a tricky nut to crack.
Tea fanatics had been already taking it upon themselves to create purchase, promote, commerce (BST) teams particularly dedicated to the model. So Rawdon and her group needed to create an area that makes it as straightforward as attainable for Tea followers to share and discover clothes. However the teams are likely to need function independently, so Rawdon stated she and her group needed to be considerate about how they may grow to be part of the resale group.
Because it seems, prospects are excited in regards to the platform. The location has garnered greater than 20,000 listings thus far.
The clothes resale market is the fastest-growing section within the trend trade total. In keeping with GlobalData, the trade is expected to grow 11 times faster than the broader retail clothes sector by 2025, primarily due to rising consciousness of quick trend’s environmental toll. GlobalData additionally estimates that the second-hand attire market within the U.S. might double to $76.4 billion by 2025.
Even essentially the most discerning trend experts have gotten comfy with shopping for from high-end classic retailers and on-line marketplaces together with Poshmark, The Real Real or TreadUp. And of the resell market, kids’s clothes is gaining essentially the most floor.
It is smart, since so many customers are already comfy with accepting or giving freely hand-me downs with mates or household.
And Tea’s prospects are passionate in regards to the model’s heritage. Every season, Tea Assortment designers have a good time a unique nation, creating distinctive prints that mirror the tradition (the manufacturers title got here from the concept that cultures in just about each nation share tea). That, plus the prime quality, cute kinds make the clothes tremendous collectible.
“There’s an emotional attachment, and it’s timeless aesthetically, so it may be completely related later,” Rawdon stated. “And it has slightly little bit of an unique feeling as a result of it is from the previous.”
Tea’s Rewear supplies search performance so prospects to buy by nation, measurement, gender, worth, reputation, and extra.
After all, Tea additionally needed to create an extra income stream for its enterprise. After a few years of discussing methods to method a resale mission, a partnership with Kidizen, which had already developed important expertise and processes behind children resale, made the numbers work.
Operating a sustainable enterprise with out counting on funding has all the time been a high precedence for Rawdon, and the method has served her effectively. Twenty years after launch, Tea remains to be thriving.
“It’s so quaint, however the worth you cost for the costume must cowl all the prices that it takes to not solely make it, however to run the enterprise,” she stated. “And that is been necessary for 20 years, which has allowed us to remain in enterprise for 20 years. We’re completely impartial, and that give us a variety of freedom and in addition a variety of duty.”
A big a part of that duty is respecting the earth as a lot as is feasible for a clothes firm. Tea Rewear is yet one more means for Tea to try this, plus honor and invigorate curiosity within the model’s two-decades-long heritage.
“It is nearly like a stroll down reminiscence lane in a technique to see all these outdated designs,” Rawdon stated. “However then you definately’re additionally seeing the longer term, too.”