Sell, Swap or Buy

From: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/features/article/sell-swap-or-buy/

Sell, swap or buy!

By Lydia Koh

August 14, 2012

Sisters Nadzirah (right) and Diyana believe fashion should be fun! — Pictures by Saw Siow Feng

KUALA LUMPUR, August 14 — Ladies (and some gentlemen), when you open your closet, is it stuffed so full of clothes that you can’t decide what to wear? Do you hoard and keep clothes that you have not worn since you were 15, never wanting to throw them out because of sentimental reasons?

Girlfriend, it’s time to face the truth... you can’t fit into that top anymore so why don’t you sell, swap or give it away on Friendly Fashion?

Sisters Nadzirah and Diyana Hashim have a passion for fashion and they believe that if you can’t fit into your clothes anymore, you should give them to someone who can.

“When you donate clothes to charity, you would think that the clothes go to the poor but I once saw them throw the clothes away!” said Nadzirah Hashim. “What Friendly Fashion hopes to achieve is to create a conscious consumer, ” said Nadzirah, who has cleared out her wardrobe, selling many of her clothes on FriendlyFashion.

“You might swap it for something you may use more often or if you’re kind enough, give it away to someone who actually wants it.”

Said Diyana: “We are a community. Although we may be the team behind Friendly Fashion, we are members ourselves and we have uploaded a lot of our items.”

If you’re wondering, Nadzirah enjoys shopping and sometimes, she buys a lot of stuff from the site as well.

“If I sell 50 items, I deserve to buy 50 items!” Nadzirah laughed. It is a challenge to restrain from buying when you are running a fashion site, especially if you are a consumer yourself..”

Work and play on a laptop: Nadzirah (left) and Diyana love the fact that the website is more of a community, enjoying buying, selling and swapping themselves.

The girls have been shopping online for ages, so they know what sort of things a shopper looks for on an online site. When Nadzirah was in the UK, she met a friend who told her about Friendly Fashion, which originated from Lithuania. With an online presence in Germany and the Czech Republic, the personal development coach turned entrepreneur decided to introduce Friendly Fashion to the Malaysian market.

“We do the marketing for Friendly Fashion Malaysia and the IT backend is done in Lithuania. It’s actually a joint venture and we get our revenue from advertising,” explained Nadrizah.

For visitors new to the site, you don’t need to pay for registration if you want to buy or sell clothes. You just have to register and you can start uploading items for sale or start shopping. Administrators and moderators do not get involved in the transaction process, unless if it is a major issue.

“So far, we’ve not gotten any problems,” said Diyana. “The members are a close-knit community and they are encouraging towards one another. We have a forum and a blog too. Some of the members D-I-Y clothes and in the forum, sometimes they will ask other members for an opinion on a skirt they are making. The members will give input, maybe adding more spikes or patterns on the skirt.”

With 5,000 members and growing, Friendly Fashion has grown tremendously since their launch in January 2012. Ninety per cent of the members are females, with ages ranging from 15-24. The site recently won the DiGi WWWoW Awards as Online Shop of The Year and the girls used the prize money to throw an ice-cream party for Friendly Fashion members.

Nadzirah and Diyana also come up with fun ideas to keep the community fresh, and recently they launched a campaign called Support The Love for Preloved Clothes featuring celebrities like Rina Omar, Lisa Surihani, Belinda Chee and more. The celebrities donate clothes they wear during Raya to Friendly Fashion and the proceeds go to Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO).

It’s all about giving back, from reducing waste to giving back to the community through campaigns like this. “Friendly Fashion aims to inspire, be it to discover your personal style or to give away something that will benefit another member. It is all about sharing and giving,” said Diyana.

What are you waiting for? Log on to www.friendlyfashion.my now and start selling, swapping or buying!