Where do we get our stock from?

So What Types of Stock Do We Handle?

From takebacks to customer returns, there are many different ways a product will end up in our hands. These are the most important ones:

Takebacks

The Definition: When you’ve finished wearing something, you send it to us, and we take it back in any condition, and find the best next step for it.

The type of stock you’ve probably heard most about from us is our “takeback” stock, and that’s because it’s the best way for you to get involved.

Our unique takeback scheme is the best way you can get involved in contributing to our stock, and making sure anything you’ve bought in the past is rehomed or responsibly recycled. We’ll give you a voucher for your favourite shop in return, so you can make a new purchase if you want to, and replace the thing you’ve given away.

Participating in a takeback scheme like ours is a great way to make sure your clothes aren’t ending up in landfill, which is unfortunately something that happens a lot when you get rid of your old clothes in other ways.

Most brands don’t have the infrastructure to create their own takeback schemes successfully, and would have to rely on multiple other companies to work out what to do with the clothes they get back. That’s when they run into issues where clothes are disposed of in the wrong ways, because they’ve lost all visibility too early on in the process.

When a brand partners with us, our 30 years of recycling specialism kick in, and we handle all of the tricky stuff, so they don’t have to try and work that out.

That way, it’s easy for everyone.

Samples

The Definition: Samples are prototypes created to showcase upcoming designs, or test the manufacturing process and make sure a design works.

Brands of all shapes and sizes make samples, because they need to know that their designs are going to work before their factories make hundreds - or even thousands - of them.

The problem is that samples are often one of a kind, sometimes not quite right, or can be chopped up and drawn on by designers as they figure out their final designs.

Most brands don’t have the capacity to sell each unique sample, especially when a lot of them have minor flaws, or aren’t the correct sizing or labelling for a brand to be legally able to sell on their own website or in store. That means - you guessed it - that oftentimes these end up in landfill, or shipped overseas.

The fabrics used are brand new, and a lot of time and effort goes into creating a sample, so it’s a huge shame for these to be thrown away - especially when most of them are in perfect condition.

Our brand partners send us any samples they don’t need any more. Our team then assesses each individual item and works out if it’s in good enough condition to rehome, or if it needs to be recycled.

That way even when something isn’t wearable, it’ll still get repurposed or reused in some way.

End of Line Stock

The Definition: End-of-line stock is stock that isn’t sellable for a business.

There are a lot of different reasons why something could become end-of-line stock - it might be that a company ordered too many of something, and there isn’t the demand. It could also be because of weather or seasonal changes, like when it starts being warmer earlier on in the year, and a brand is still left with coats and jumpers that nobody has a need for.

Sometimes a brand will update their designs, and they will no longer want to sell an old logo or design, so these will become end-of-line stock too.

Some brands are able to sell their end-of-line stock slowly, or at another point in the year, but inevitably most companies end up with the problem of not enough storage, and too many products.

This has left a lot of brands and companies with a big issue - what to do with all this stuff that they can’t sell? Unfortunately, it’s led to a lot of cases where end-of-line stock has ended up in landfill or incinerated.

We take away that worry for our brand partners, by taking on their end-of-line stock, and making sure it goes to a good home. You can get great quality brand-new clothes for a discounted price, and nothing gets wasted. Everyone is happy.

Faulty Items

The Definition: Faulty items refer to any products that have defects, and don’t meet a brand’s quality standards.

Sometimes just a few items from a manufacturer are faulty, or sometimes it’s an entire batch. We’ve seen t-shirts with upside-down prints and things sewn back to front - there are a lot of ways that clothes can end up not meeting a brand’s quality standards. Especially when manufacturing is happening halfway across the world, and in another language - mistakes are often made.

We take faulty items that brands don’t know what to do with, saving them from landfill, and working out what to do next. Sometimes the garments are perfectly good except for minor issues, but other times they’re not wearable. We make the decision on a case by case basis whether to try to rehome something, or to recycle it so that it can start a new life as something else.

Photoshoot Products

The Definition: Clothes and accessories that a brand has used for a photoshoot, which has sometimes only been worn for a couple of hours.

Products that are used for photoshoots can seem like they’re pretty much brand new - sometimes they’re only even worn for a few minutes or even less. The problem is that they can’t be sold by brands after that, so we take them off their hands, ozone cleanse them and make sure they feel clean and new again.

These are some of the best value items you can buy from us - they’re usually brand new designs, but still at our signature discount prices.

Customer Returns

The Definition: The things we buy, try on at home, decide we don’t need and send back to the place we bought them from.

Did you know that a lot of the time those things aren’t able to be put back on the shelf? Sometimes it’s because they’ve been lightly worn, other times a company has already stopped selling that specific product. This happens frequently with big companies and brands who change their stock every few weeks.

Without quality control, it can be easier for brands to just discard everything than to go through hundreds or even thousands of returns, checking the condition. We hand sort customer returns, making sure that anything that can be rehomed is, and anything that needs to be thrown away is responsibly recycled.

We prioritise quality first and foremost, when choosing which clothes that we resell on our platform. We want to make sure that buying pre-loved feels as good as buying new, but at a better price.

That’s why our drops are carefully curated, so the shopping experience is fun for you, and you know you’ll always find something you’re going to love.

Many of the clothes that we might not sell on our website are still perfectly usable, so we find new homes for those ones too. And that leaves us with any recycling, which we make sure is done in the most sustainable way possible, so nothing ever goes to waste.