The Swapshop – exchanging fashion items

The Swapshop is a chain of shops where it’s all about swapping. At The Swapshop people can hand in their unwanted fashion items. Then, they will be rewarded with points (Swaps). The Swaps can be used to ‘buy’ other handed in items, next to paying a service fee per item.

The project started with the opening of a pop-up swapshop in the centre of Rotterdam at the end of August 2019. This shop was opened for 4 months and the concept and business model was tested in practice. The shop was located in Oase, a sustainable mini-mall with lunch room. In July 2020, the start-up opened a shop  in fashion hub De Wasserij in Rotterdam North, and in September 2020 a shop was opened in the centre of Rotterdam. Another milestone of The Swapshop project was winning the Circular Textile Challenge of Start-up in Residence, an innovative collaboration between the city of Amsterdam and start-ups. At the moment, The Swapshop has two physical shops. In the first quarter of 2021, a new shop will be opened in Amsterdam and The Swapshop will launch their webshop. In addition, The Swapshop is preparing their first fully circular products for their product line made from their collected non-wearable clothes

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The future!

In 2025 , The Swapshop will have one shop in 10 largest cities of the Netherlands and a webshop with a large reach. Next to that The Swapshop would like to expand outside the Netherlands with shops all over Europe and collaborations with upcoming and established designers and circular entrepreneurs. In the future, The Swapshop  will work on arranging  international collaborations with, for example, designers and circular companies that can make new products out of recycled clothes. In 2025: 1.113.419 clothing items are expected to be brought in and 339.411 kg of clothes is being collected with special ‘collecting days’.

 

www.the-swapshop.com