Isa Schindler gives outdoor clothing a second life

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“Damn, that’s the third jacket!” Kilchberg ZH’s Isa Schindler (57) shook that thought when she happily hung her new hard-shell jacket in the closet. “I was sure I needed them at the shop, but realized I had enough jackets at home for mountaineering,” he says. But he quickly realized: “I’m not the only one with a lot of outerwear in good condition.”

It will be better for the environment to reuse clothes instead of keeping them in the closet until they are old and unusable. Isa Schindler brought this idea to life and signed the lease for a pop-up bar at Europaallee in Zurich on March 15, 2020. Due to the corona epidemic, he had a lot of time to set up and collect mountain clothes that are no longer needed from his friends and acquaintances.

transparent prices

2. Peak resale value is usually no more than 50 percent of the new price, depending on the condition and age of the goods. The seller receives one third of the sales price in advance. This eliminates the need to wait for the garment to sell and the price is also transparent.

Not only the prices, but also the origin of the garment can be seen by everyone. To that end, Schindler and his team designed their own labels that show how new the piece is and who made it. “Oddly enough, passers-by happen over and over again and ask for a different size of pants or jacket because they think we’re just a regular mountain sports shop,” he says. He is proud of this, and this is important to him: only quality and new products come to his shop. It smells and looks like a sports store.

Two years of ups and downs

The trained marketing professional and ETH sports teacher loves to travel the mountains, whether on high laps, climbing, racing bike, cross-country skiing or skiing tours. That’s why he collected a bunch of mountaineering gear. And even today he can’t always resist exciting products. “But my motto is this: For something new to come in, something has to go first.”

Even though he’s spent less time outside in the past two and a half years, his personal dedication to her is worth it. “It’s tiring and intense, but I’ve never been as exhausted as in my previous jobs. Making a small contribution to ecological sustainability fills me up much more,” he says.

sell easily

The first two years passed with great ups and downs. “Often he almost got me astray,” he recalls of the time. But this winter has gone so well that it is now opening a second shop in Bern. “We’re just daring: the shop is great, we’re still amazed at how quickly it all ends,” he says. The opening is on 6 May 2023.

He is very satisfied with his loyal and loyal clientele in Zurich and is excited to see how things will develop in Bern. «If you want to make as much money as possible from selling your outdoor clothing, you’ve come to the wrong place. You could probably earn more on online purchases,” he says openly. But what their sellers appreciate most is that they don’t have to coordinate with buyers, send packages or arrange handovers, so their fine items can be easily given a second life.

Rent shoes and buy later

With the proceeds from the sale, Schindler can pay its team members a fair wage – but they don’t make a profit. But there are clothes that can sell for three times as much: Arc’teryx hard-shell jackets, for example. And mountaineering boots sell well—because they may be broken, but only so that you don’t see any signs of wear.

“We also rent almost everything in the shop. So you can rent clothes, equipment or shoes and then buy them if appropriate,” explains the woman from Kilchberg. So you save yourself from a bad purchase and it’s good for the environment.

Source : Blick