While some businesses struggle to stay afloat amid soaring energy prices and a squeeze on people’s purchasing power, others are doing better than before. Second-hand clothing retailers are experiencing a boom, with shoppers lured by environmental concerns as well as low prices.
Geltonas Namelis (Yellow House) is a clothing shop in Birzai, a town in northern Lithuania. It is full of customers the moment it opens in the morning. It sells both new clothes and second-hand items, but it is the latter that the shoppers are after.
“That’s the shop we live from, half of us would be walking around barefoot and naked if it wasn’t for that,” says Algirdas, one of the shoppers.
“Why do I choose second-hand clothes? Because they are cheaper and of better quality,” adds Inga.
The business has had tough moments in recent years, but sales are now booming. Not only middle-income buyers are coming to shop for second-hand clothes in Yellow House, but also the relatively wealthy.
“Even if a person spends, for example, 200 euros, they are happy and say, “I have bought a lot, in another shop I would have bought maybe only two items”,” says Rasa Varekojiene, the manager of the shop.
Marketing researcher Lineta Ramoniene, of the Vilnius-based ISM University, says the demand for second-hand clothes is growing. This is because people are currently confused about the future, she says.
“It’s not that, for example, new clothes are already too expensive for them. But the consumers feel that they need to buy something. So they are satisfying that need in the market of cheaper goods, and second-hand shops would be the place to go,” she explains.
A surge in the second-hand clothing sector is well-reflected in statistics. From the beginning of the year until now, the turnover of such retailers has almost doubled, according to Statistics Lithuania.
Not only are people buying more second-hand clothes, they are also selling items they no longer use, says Viktorija Nausede, head of the company Resources for Sustainable Development.
However, she says, this is not just about saving money, as more and more young people believe that they are contributing to a less polluted environment.
“We used to associate second-hand things with some kind of deprivation, and it has really taken time to educate and entice people who can afford just about anything, but are conscious enough to know they don’t always have to buy new,” according to Nausede.
“What we are seeing today is a really big change,” she adds.
Economists believe that if high inflation persists, competition will increase in the low-cost clothing sector. As people start buying more second-hand textiles, shops selling new clothes will be forced to keep prices down. (LRT/Business World Magazine)