Everything is coming up Tikiteboo.
Started by mother-daughter duo Karrina and Bella-Rose Mountfort, Tikiteboo is a top-tier online thrift boutique, where sustainable fashion meets incredible savings. They're not just a store but a movement towards a greener planet and a healthier wallet.
Bella-Rose is a a current Y13 student who saw an increase in the popularity of thrifted finds, that coupled with her passion for sustainability and clothing with her background in working on social media she saw an opportunity to build something a little different than how others were doing it.
By building an online marketplace for young girls and guys to sell their wears to earn some extra cash while studying, training, learning a different way to make money besides the traditional 9-5 job, taking an innovative approach to work/life balance.
We spoke to Bella-Rose and Karrina to learn more about Tikiteboo, how it works and why it’s so important to thrift!
Tell us about Tikiteboo and how it came to be? What was the inspiration?
Tikiteboo came about as a result of Bella looking to travel for her sports and thinking how she could contribute money while she was training and at school. She set a mini stand in the garage and put it out on our local noticeboard and advertised it and had local mums and their kids come along. It was quite successful so she thought that she would then start to promote it to her friends who also had a large amount of clothes they no longer wore but didn’t know what to do with. So we decided to create a marketplace where Gen Z can load and sell their clothing to encourage entrepreneurship in our young people and have them foster a culture of circular fashion.
How does it work? Is it all online?
Our marketplace is online, where you can buy and sell easily! However we did launch last year with an in person market in Parnell which was really successful so we may look to have community activations through markets and in person sessions for different events in office in Parnell, Auckland.
What is deadstock?
Deadstock are items that brands may have from previous seasons that they have left over that they might want to use our platform to sell.
What steps do you take to ensure the items on your website are ‘top-tier’? Why include vendor training?
We have an approval process for our items, where we check the pricing, photo condition and make sure that it is all accurate and represents the product. We try our hardest to ensure that our customers have a top tier experience and that the clothes listed with us are as much as possible top tier. We are though trusting in our vendors that the images are an accurate representation of the items they are selling.
The vendor training is in the form of videos in their account dashboards when they become approved vendors, it ensures that people are confident to load their clothing and items easily and not a stressful experience of trying to work out how to use the platform! We are trying to make an awesome experience for our vendors so that they can quickly and easily load and process their items on their e-stores.
Why sell on Tikiteboo over the likes of TradeMe, Designer Wardrobe or in-store consignment?
We are building a Gen Z audience that we found traditionally are not spending as much time on trademe as it sells all sorts of items as opposed to just clothing, Designer Wardrobe do an awesome job however we are looking to be a platform where you look for clothing that is everyday where or maybe something special such as a vintage or y2k piece, perhaps Gorpcore, whatever is trending at that time. We can not compete with in store consignment as people need to spend the time to list their items as opposed to have someone else list them for you - however with only a 10% fee + stripe transaction we think that it is worth while using your pics you may have already taken in the item you are selling from a night out to take the time to have your own e-store selling your items and we are building Tikiteboo into a community to make it as easy as possible for you to do so!
Tell us about Tikiteen too? It’s such a cool initiative!
Tikiteen is an awesome social impact side of Tikiteboo that came about when Bella and I were planning our sustainability plan for our market. We were putting in place a report on how we were going to run our market as sustainably as possible as we had a vendor ask us who was going overseas after having a stall with us if we could take the rest of the items she didn’t sell. We decided to collate all these items and find new homes for them to save them going to landfill. As we are all about promoting entrepreneurship in our young people while also teaching them about circular fashion we thought that we would put together an initiative where we collected items people no longer want and give them other young people in the community who are looking to start work or study and lack the means to have appropriate clothing for their daily lives.
We now have our clothing collection containers which are at present located in the Icehouse co working space where we are located and have been collecting more items to distribute into the community.
Why is it important to be ‘for Kiwis, made by Kiwis’?
Well we are all about helping kiwis grow, we feel that if we can work on promoting businesses in our local economy then everyone benefits as a result.
Do you work with brands or just individual sellers?
For our deadstock ranges we are looking for more brands throughout NZ and Australia to work with and for the thrifted items, individuals can list their collections from their private wardrobes or perhaps pieces that they source. We are not wanting to promote people importing a whole lot of items however as we are looking to promote keeping the clothing that is already in circulation in people's wardrobes as opposed to the landfill.
Have you noticed any trends on the site?
Not particularly yet but I am sure as we grow and more people come on board to sell we can look to identify these trends and then run campaigns around them to help drive awareness for our vendors!
Looking ahead, what are your plans and goals for the future?
We are constantly working on how to make the experience better and better for sellers and buyers. Our immediate goal is looking to partner with new postage providers so we can jump across the ditch and have people buying and selling together throughout NZ and Australia. Our short term goal is looking to have online and in person events to connect our community and be a part of different exciting events in the coming months and years.
In our immediate plan, we are also looking to start marketing in the next month to get more awareness for the brand to gain more vendors with an entrepreneurial mindset to sell their clothing collections without the cost of a website and the pain of having to work through and work out shipping costs etc on Insta, instead you can list them up and then when they sell book a courier and the item will be zipping off to its new home!
What are the coolest pieces on the site as we speak?
We are really enjoying seeing what people load, last week we sold a really cool tartan tie up top which was by the brand Bershka which was made in Turkey and when modelled by one of our Tikiteboo Talent Creators was sold in a heartbeat! There is a really cool corset dress by the brand All Saints and another favourite is a vintage YSL jacket which is awesome for the upcoming cooler months. There are lots of items on there we like and we are excited to add a more diverse collection as people come on board!
