UK-based retailer John Lewis is initiating a new buy-back scheme for customers old clothes, the company announced on Monday.
The service is being tested on over 100 John Lewis customers with Stuffsr, a corporation dedicated to recycling customers old products, in an effort to reduce the 300,000 tonnes of clothing which is sent to landfills annually in the UK.
The app-based service will tally what a customer has purchased from John Lewis, over the time frame of five years, and will enable users to select what they wish to ‘sell back’ to the company.
The app will immediately generate a value on the item, and will offer to send a courier to the premises of the customer to pick up the items once they have a minimum of £50 worth of clothing.
Once the items are picked up the customer will be emailed a John Lewis e-gift card for the value of the items returned.
The items will then be either resold, mended to be resold, or recycled into new products.
“We already take back used sofas, beds, and large electrical items such as washing machines and either donate them to charity, or reuse and recycle parts and want to offer a service for fashion products,” said John Lewis sustainability manager Martyn White.
“It’s estimated that the average UK household owns around £4000 worth of clothes, but around 30 per cent of that clothing has not been worn for at least a year, most commonly because it no longer fits.
“We hope that by making it as easy as we possibly can for customers to pass on clothing that they’re no longer wearing we can ensure that the maximum life is extracted from items bought from us.
White confirmed if this concept proves successful the next stage would be to offer an option to donate the money to charity.
In 2017, John Lewis reused over 27000 electrical products, approximately 2000 used sofas and recycled materials for 55000 mattresses.
The retailer currently has an exclusive partnership in Australia with Myer, offering their homewares in selected stores and on Myer online.
Myer was not immediately available for comment.
