I wish someone had told me about Yaga

“I wish someone had told me” is a series of posts that feed into our inquisitive nature at CN&CO. Each week we hear from someone in our network about something interesting or surprising that’s recently happened or occurred to them – or lessons they learnt. These blogs are a way to pay it forward and form part of CN&CO’s belief that the world can be a better place – and we all have a responsibility to make it so. This week’s post is by Kate Conlan.

I love clothes and I REALLY love to shop. I often tell my friends that my motto in life is a simple one, “Life is a catwalk. Fashion first, always”. One of my most favourite jobs that I got just after university was a fashion and beauty internship at Marie Claire Magazine.  I got to live out my “Devil wears Prada” fantasy, surrounded by amazing clothing, shoes, accessories, the list is endless. I learnt about styling and my confidence in being able to push the boundaries of fashion grew, and so did my love of shopping. But shopping tends to come at a price, literally. And then someone told me about Yaga.

I’ve really noticed a shift in how mine and my friends’ shopping habits have changed – we’re renting, swapping and thrifting our clothes more than ever.  Not only is it often cheaper, but shopping secondhand is also one of the most sustainable ways to shop. Enter Yaga, an amazingly user-friendly online store concept that allows you to shop from the closets of people in your community   

The process is simple; you create a profile and set up your shop, upload photos of the items you want to sell and give them a price tag. You then sit back and wait for someone to find them a new home. Yaga currently has two integrated courier options that deliver nationwide: Aramex (Store to door service) and PAXI (Pep to Pep Store service). It is up to each seller to decide which delivery methods they would like to enable for their shop and in most cases the shipping cost will be paid extra (together with the item price) at checkout. Once an item has been delivered to the buyer, the funds are released into your Yaga ‘wallet,’ which you can then use to buy items on Yaga or have the money transferred into your bank account – it’s really that easy!

In a word, Yaga is awesome. I love the idea of my clothes going on to live a second life and the connections you can make with like-minded shoppers. Fashion is extremely important to me, I love the fact that it allows me to express myself – it can be loud, it can be outrageous, but most of all it should be a helluva lot of fun!

Download the Yaga app or check out the website here.