It’s been an important year of transformation and expansion for us here at Retykle and as 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to take a look back at all that we have achieved together, as a team and a community. We have also set some important goals for 2020 which we hope to achieve with the help of our mighty Retykle community.  

TECH AND INNOVATION 

Launching a new seller portal has enhanced our offering in more ways than one. In response to our rapidly growing seller community, the new custom technology allows our operations team to work more efficiently, vastly increasing the amount of products they can make live on our site on a daily basis. As we continue to scale our business, the new seller portal provides our Retykle Sellers with a more user friendly experience when they are selling their outgrown children’s wear with us. Since we launched in 2016, Retykle now has a community of thousands of committed sellers who have joined the movement. You're making the cycle possible - thank you! 

More than 400 tonnes of kids clothing has been recycled through Retykle which has a significant impact in offsetting our collective carbon footprint. 

BIG NEWS 

Since Retykle launched, we have hosted a number of large scale pop-ups throughout Hong Kong and after a particularly successful pop-up in September at our studio in Wong Chuk Hang, we decided to open our physical doors permanently. Maintaining our online presence alongside the new store space, we’ve been able to give customers an additional opportunity to see, try and purchase items. 

With this new space we’ve also had the opportunity to offer our customers an additional level of community engagement with our events program. We remain committed to partnering with local Hong Kong business’ to provide our Retyklers with exciting events and have more to come in the new year. We have worked regularly with My Hong Kong ABC on fun crafts for little ones, baking with Raw Beans and floral workshops with BYDEAU. We were also able to host our always popular Festive Fun Photoshoot at the end of the year, giving our loyal Retykle audience the opportunity to enjoy complimentary family photos ahead of the Christmas period - even Santa stopped by for a few! 

Your passion has been contagious and we wanted to engage more closely with our most committed Retyklers and so we decided to launch our Ambassador program in 2019, inviting a small group to be part of our extended team and journey. In 2019 our 11 mighty ambassadors made an impact by spreading the word and offered valuable feedback which informed critical decisions. Want to join the program? Email us hello@retykle.com

Our reach is continuing to expand in Hong Kong and to create easier ways for sellers to clean out, we have introduced a new drop-off program, welcoming business partners, schools and corporates to join the cycle with Retykle. Today, parents can drop off their outgrown children’s clothes at one of dozens of our drop off partner locations across the city including Velveteen and LiveZero as well as a number of schools including Wilderness and Mighty Oaks. Want to refer a new drop off point? Email us hello@retykle.com

It puts a smile on our faces when we receive orders from parents all over the world as it means that our message is reaching far and wide. We are planning to expand into new geographies to localise our service in the not too distant future, opening the door to more countries being able to sell and purchase outgrown designer children's and maternity wear with us. 

This is where we blush...we are incredibly proud of the achievements of our small team. This year, we have received recognition from Inside Retail as one of the Top 50 Innovative Retail Leaders in 2019 and Founder Sarah Garner was announced as one of 2019's Green Warriors by Green is the New Black which recognises 30 individuals across Asia who are leading the charge for a greener planet. For the second year in a row, we have also participated at Asia’s leading tech conference, RISE. We went from being a BETA stage exhibitor in 2018 to GROWTH stage exhibitor in 2019 and Retykle was named by RISE as one of the most exciting GROWTH start-ups in 2019. A GROWTH start-up is recognised as their top-tier in terms of achievements in scaling as well as their future prospects. 

CELEBRATING PEOPLE

Since we launched, our team has grown from 1 to 14 with the addition of an intern squad over the summer months. At Retykle, we are passionate about our team and we’ve been working hard to shout about all of their achievements - meet Brianna and Sarah from our incredible Operations Team that keep day to day operations at Retykle running smoothly! 

GIVING BACK

We are lucky enough to work with some inspiring charities who do a lot for our community. Retykle is able to support them in two ways; Monetary Support where sellers can opt to donate their earnings to any one of charity partners, instead of receiving cash or credit for their sold items or Clothing Donations where sellers can donate any unsold or unaccepted items directly to our charity partners. Since we launched, we have donated over 40,000 items of clothing to our various partners and our community of Retykle Sellers have supported charities significant monetary donations from their earnings. In 2019 we have added some fantastic local organisations to our list of charity partners including Mother’s Choice who we recently profiled on the blog. 

BRAND PARTNERSHIPS

Our Brand Partnership program continues to go from strength to strength. We've been working with brands to help them ease the burden of past season stock, giving them a means to keep all stock in circulation and out of landfill. We're giving brands the opportunity to act on part of their sustainability objectives with ease. This year alone we have welcomed new brand partners including New Balance, Mayarya, Sunset Limonade, Excuse My French, Salt Water Sandals and many more.