Did you hear about the clothing exchange shop The Swapshop? They already showed their face in Rotterdam in 2018, and now a brand new store has opened at Weena 70! This means that there is plenty of room for swapping.
The Swapshop has already seen quite a few places in Rotterdam, and the founders Monique and Laura have warm memories of this. “It all started in 2018 with a small swap event in a park in Rotterdam. This was followed by many swaps at locations throughout the city. Thanks to a great collaboration with Bluecity010, these events have grown into huge swaps under the name Changez, which can sometimes attract around 500 people.” says Monique. Laura adds: “In 2019 we had the opportunity to open a store. This became the pop-up shop The Swapshop010 in sustainable mini-mall Oase. After that we had two more stores. One on the Rodezand in the centre and one in Rotterdam North. These were crazy times.”
You may not be familiar with The Swapshop yet; No problem. At The Swapshop you can hand in your previous favourite clothes, shoes and accessories. In exchange, you receive swaps (points) on a digital account. 1 swap is worth €1. The better the quality of the item, the more swaps you get. With those swaps you then get a 50% discount on the sales price of the items in the store.
Not only is this way of shopping a lot of fun, it is also sustainable. Your clothing gets a new life and is not thrown away. In addition, you immediately get value back, so you can add new items to your wardrobe yourself.
Laura and Monique's mission is therefore promising. They want to reduce the enormous amount of textile waste in the Netherlands, without giving up our love for fashion. They are already well on their way, because did you know that together with swappers they have already provided more than 45,000 items with a new owner in the past two years? This has saved approximately 27 million liters of water and 74,000 kg of CO2 emissions. In the coming years, The Swapshop wants to multiply this impact through their franchise model.
The Swapshop festively opened the new store on Friday, December 8. Would you also like to visit to swap your clothes? The store is open from Wednesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM and on Sunday from 1 PM to 6 PM.