In early childhood, children grow at a rate of about 5-6 cm per year. Specifically, the growth rate decreases starting from the 3rd year of age: from this point a more regular growth phase begins, up to pubertal age.
Unlike the growth of children, clothes always remain the same size. This generates a large volume of clothing, often exaggerated precisely by hyper-consumerism, which then usually have three options for their lifecycle:
remain in the closet / garage indefinitely,
are sold on online platforms or second-hand shops,
they are reused for other children or for children of friends.
Furthermore, in recent years, numerous studies have been conducted on the costs of raising a child. Among the second-hand goods, the biggest expenses are dedicated to the clothing of their children: on average, families spend between € 980 and € 1.385 per year per child.
An even more surprising figure when compared to the expenses incurred for the education and care of children: approximately € 1.365 per year per child (Federconsumatori).
Furthermore, it is now recognized that the levels of consumption in modern society have reached a point of no return, the current model is no longer sustainable for the planet.
Second-hand clothes threats
If we then shift our attention to the second-hand market, historically the clothes that are found are often "heavily" used, or of poor quality, and the solutions currently available to parents have various critical issues.
These are highlighted on the two main actions involved:
the supply
the purchase
Supply
-Offline: The parent must physically go to the store, has no possibility to decide the prices or visibility of the clothing, receives any (minimum) earnings only after the clothes has been sold (sales account)
-Online: The parent has a long and tedious process of taking photos, uploading to the portal, placing descriptions, deciding the price, managing 1:1 questions with interested parties, negotiating and communicating, making the package, managing the shipment, etc ...
Purchase
-Offline: The parent must physically go to the store, has a limited choice only to what is currently in the store, cannot know the review or profile of who supplied that garment
-Online: The parent wastes a lot of time looking for the perfect garment, has to look at the photos in detail, cannot try on clothes, has to overcome the psychological obstacle of buying without a return guarantee, has to pay shipping for each different seller, etc.
The Opportunity
The opportunity identified is to involve parents who have not yet had the interest or need to do so in the supply, taking advantage of the "conscious" and socially relevant issue. The hypothesis is that this segment (medium-high) has large volumes of little-used and well-branded clothing, perhaps used only by a child and kept with care.
Another opportunity is to actively involve mothers who have lost or abandoned their jobs following the birth of a child.
The Challenge
Given the premises described above, the challenge we found ourselves facing in this new exploratorium was to create a tool that would allow us to collect the will of mothers to donate clothes for their children no longer used (clothes from 1 to 3 years in excellent condition).
Specifically, we have set ourselves the goal of collecting at least 50 memberships from mothers / families.
Furthermore, the tool created, to collect adhesions, must be organically scalable and work in a focused and territorial way, in order to increase virality and the network effect.
The Sprint Process
We have focused our attention on two main topics:
How to capture the interest of our target (through which channels, but above all through which language - Tone of Voice)
How to motivate our target to donate clothes no longer used (what to communicate)
After a Design Thinking session, which lasted several hours, we entered the convergent phase.
Together with the team we have therefore outlined the tasks:
The team connected to a set of social channels in which to publish the content
The team created the banner available to share on social networks to reach the identified target
The team produced the landing page to share with the target
Banner
As you can see, the ADV has a rather ironic content.
We wanted to focus the attention of the target on something absurd and unreal, but which would lead to some thoughts.
The choice of Tone of Voice and the colors used allow us to immediately and implicitly capture the interest of our target.
The banner is then published on the various social channels with its caption, specifically designed. From the banner, the user can then land on the landing page to continue his exploration.
Landing Page
The landing page, designed to give continuity to the user, immediately focuses the target's attention on the most positive aspects of donating clothes.
In particular, it is highlighted how unemployed mothers are involved in this new opportunity and any revenues are donated for social causes.
After explaining how the donation of clothing works, the user is invited to fill out a short questionnaire. Specifically, the questionnaire, consisting of 9 multiple selection questions, allowed us to collect the adhesions of the target itself.
Validation Phase
Each Exploratorium lasts 2 weeks: in the first week we took care of the creation of the contents to be shared in the various social channels; in the second week we published the contents to start the validation phase.
The contents (Banner and Landing page) were published in 21 facebook groups (in line with the target identified), and shared via whatsapp with personal contacts.
During the validation phase, we found a conversion and adhesion rate that was not in line with expectations.
Together with the PO, we decided to give greater visibility to the questionnaire, moving it to the center of the landing page instead of at the end of it.
This action allowed users to focus more attention on the questionnaire, putting the in-depth contents in the background.
Results of 5 days validation
Specifically, the landing page was viewed by 354 users, scattered throughout the Vicenza and Padua areas.
The average session duration on the landing was 2:01 minutes, an index of interest in the topic.
The best performing channel used to access to the landing page has been the direct contact "mum-to-mum" via chat (whatsapp), that won over social networks.
Among these 354 users, 39 filled out the form and 25 of them declared their willingness to organize the donation of clothing.
Lastly, 40% of users showed interest in actively working on the project with us.
Did you find this content useful for the validation of one of your many ideas?
