total time: 1.07 minutes
total words: 177
[Anna Callahan]: Hi, I am here with Stephanie Johnson, who owns SwapIt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Stephanie, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's really nice that you put together this whole list of local shopping for this holiday.
[Anna Callahan]: It has been so fun and so fun to meet people, really just a joy. So yeah, can you tell us a little bit about how SwapIt got started?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure. Um, swap its main mission is to keep clothing out of landfills for as long as possible. And we do that by creating kind of like new and different ways to shop secondhand. Um, and so that all came from the idea of, um, I was struggling like a lot with my wardrobe. I was living in New York city. I wasn't making any money. Um, but I was moving up in my career and I was being photographed and I was being seen and talking in front of a lot of people and I was feeling really uncomfortable in my clothes and I, um, wanted to like upgrade my wardrobe, but I didn't necessarily want to go to, um, like a traditional retail store, buy stuff, not know if I was going to wear it, create more waste or even fast fashion, which is like more what I could have afforded back then. Um, and so. At the same time, I was doing this fellowship about greening and learning about how much waste there is and how much trash there is. And in New York, they have to ship their trash to Michigan. So not only is it a ton of trash that's taking up space that could be a park or whatever, but also it's huge trash trucks that are now driving from New York to Michigan with all that snog and smoke. So those two things were like swirling around in my head at the same time, but I didn't like shopping secondhand. Um, I found it challenging and just took like a lot of time and, um, you know, return policies are always kind of iffy. So, um, I ended up like, just, you know, like you do in your twenties, I bribed my friends with pizza and beer and they came over and we had like lots of brainstorming sessions and finally kind of came up with this idea of a. more like an easier shopping experience where SwapFit offers styling and we offer swapping. So you bring in like a bag of clothes and you can take stuff from us. And so it kind of gets rid of that decision-making process. You take it home and then if you find that you don't wear it, you just bring it back. There's no return policy, right? It's just swapping. And that's really been able to encourage more people to shop secondhand, it makes it easier. And so it came from like my own Like most business stories, it came to a problem that I was facing that I decided I wanted to solve. And that's kind of how we did it.
[Anna Callahan]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is so cool. Tell me a little bit more about how the styling stuff works. Sure. So well, I guess we'll get to COVID in a minute. But pre-COVID, we had a personal stylist. And you could book appointments. And we have three different types of appointments, but basically you come in and the stylist has pre-picked things for you to try on based on your like a questionnaire. And then you try it on with her and she teaches you style tricks. And oftentimes people walk out with things they never would have taken off the rack. They feel amazing about what they grabbed. And it's all really affordable. Our first session, our most popular session was $50. And that includes five items of clothing we wanted to make personal styling kind of available to the masses. So people that never thought they would have a personal stylist, like got this experience and it's all with secondhand clothing. So there's nothing to feel guilty about. You don't feel guilty about the money and you don't feel guilty about the stuff.
[Anna Callahan]: That is amazing. Sounds so great and an amazing gift for Christmas. Now, how have you guys been doing since COVID? And I'm sorry, I missed, when did you start?
[SPEAKER_00]: Also a complicated story, but we've been in our Medford storefront for a year and a half, just over a year and a half probably, yeah.
[Anna Callahan]: And yeah, how have things been going since COVID?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they've definitely had to adapt. I had two stylists, and one kind of faded off with COVID, and the other one lives in Rhode Island, so she was taking trains to get here. And so obviously we stopped that and kind of the one-on-one that really, it's a very close interaction. I mean, she's touching you. She's like, you know, tucking you, rolling your pants, whatever she's doing. So we have actually like stopped that completely for now. And, um, the only thing that we offer right now is our, is our swap membership. And we have to, um, people have to book appointments to come in. We don't let more than five people in the store at a time. We take everybody's temperature. You have to wear a mask. We have hand sanitizer out. So it's definitely changed the flow of how everything works. But we have very high hopes of being back to whatever the new normal, or hopefully the old normal, we'll be back to after this is all over and bring back our styling services.
[Anna Callahan]: I can't wait. So yeah, just how can people shop with you for the holidays?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the best thing to do for the holidays really would be to get a membership. We offer, it's a year long membership. That's what we've realized is kind of the most valuable for people. It's $147 for the year. And what that includes is really just an unlimited wardrobe. It's one for one swap. We're women only. Or like say anyone that wants to wear women's clothing. And we, So you bring something in, you get something, you can almost think of it like credits. So you could drop off on your first day, 200 pieces and then have the whole year to use it up. Or on the other end, you could come the first time with nothing and take swaps. And then you have the whole year to kind of catch up. So, you know, our members don't go to stores anymore. They can just come in whenever they need anything. We change our floor. i'm constantly so there's always new stuff out we change it with the season, we have a whole section right now for like holiday where not that anyone's really going anywhere, but doesn't. You still like to her sequence and read the year. We haven't. been there your boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever yeah. or your you know your zoom get togethers.
[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, for your cat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not? It's funny you say that because so many of our members have cats. It's like this funny trend that they all have.
[Anna Callahan]: And do you have a website? Like how do people make that happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[Anna Callahan]: Like if it were like a gift membership for somebody, let's say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. We have had that too. It's a very, it seems to be a very popular mother-in-law gift because instead of getting like sweater that your daughter-in-law is not going to wear or like and feel really awkward about. You get her this entire wardrobe that she can totally pick out. And even you could go with her. We have private shopping hours. You could rent out the whole store to yourself. And so you could go with whoever buys you the gift and have like a little get together after. Um, but our website is, um, the easiest one would be swapit.cool. So S W A P I T dot C O O L. And there we'll have all the membership information and a link if you wanna talk to us, or you can also email us at style at a swappinggoodtime.com if you wanna talk and check out a little bit more. And I think that's the best way to be with us this season.
[Anna Callahan]: Awesome, and is there a way to donate to you or like people have clothes or is it mostly just members who come in and bring clothes?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is also a COVID thing. Pre-COVID, we were taking from everyone, and now we're really in kind of this membership loop. So if you are a member, you can bring in. And if you know a member, you can probably drop a bag at their house and have them bring it in for you.
[Anna Callahan]: Got it. Great. Sounds super exciting. I think it's such a great gift. Very, very fun. Yeah. And so, yeah, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great to meet you and great to know about your store. You too. Thanks for having me and hopefully we'll see some viewers in this year. Absolutely.
[Anna Callahan]: Bye-bye. Bye.
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total time: 1.07 minutes total words: 177 |
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