Have you ever wondered how many times a baby wears its clothes before it already needs a bigger size? Does it really make sense then to buy everything new for kids when they grow up so fast that they will only wear stuff for few weeks?
Photo: Triana Esperanza Hilgersom wishes to open many other SecondHand4Kids shops in the country / Credits © Sandy Millar / Unsplash
From awareness to business idea
When Triana Esperanza Hilgersom became a mum, she realised that most of the items she bought for her two boys quickly ended up in her storage, taking lots of space, waiting there for nothing. It was also the case for many people around her. She also noticed that in neighbouring countries, second-hand shops were quite common whereas the offer was very poor in Luxembourg.
As she had the dream to create her own business since 2017, she decided to transform these findings into a concept and came up with the idea of opening a second-hand shop for kids in 2020.
A social impact project
From the beginning, Triana felt attracted by combining business with social impact. After receiving her business permit, it took her an additional six months to finally get the official SIS agreement, an important step as SecondHand4Kids was not only meant to bring money, she had a much larger vision for it:
– Developing the circular economy: for now, all the items proposed in the shop are used items coming from donations. Anyone can bring clothes, toys, pregnancy articles that they do not need any more to the shop or contact Triana directly for pick-up. On the one hand, this was a good way to stop storing articles that could be useful for many families. On the other hand, this would limit overconsumption by encouraging people to stop buying exclusively new items for their children.
– Supporting struggling families: thanks to the items collected from donations, discounts are proposed to refugee families and special deals events are being organized to support families with limited revenues.
– Giving job opportunities to “low employability” profiles: the young entrepreneur can be very proud to have recently offered a first part-time job to a profile with criteria’s that would unfortunately tend to scare recruiters: a +55 year old woman benefiting from the REVIS (Revenue d’Inclusion Sociale – Social Inclusion Revenue) joined her in the adventure.
Keep learning and grow
To grow her concept further, the entrepreneur will start following a proper business program at the Chamber of Commerce to develop her skills. At the same time, she is still supported by the CoBees, a community of entrepreneurs based at Facilitec, from which SecondHand4Kids is a co-founder. She gets from their support with her communication and marketing. Her dream for the future? Seeing her idea expanding all around Luxembourg, convincing more and more people to consider second-hand items, especially for short-term use and contribute to open many other SecondHand4Kids shops in the country.
How about contributing to the circular economy thanks to your kids?
