About us

About Lil Thrifters

I (Alison) am a mum of two young boys based in Sydney, Australia, and I'm passionate about living ethically (not causing undue harm to people and animals in our world) and sustainably (living in a way that will allow our planet to keep flourishing for generations to come).

Read more about why this store exists and how it helps you shop ethically and sustainably here.

How does Lil Thrifters work?

Lil Thrifters is run by me. This is my process:

1. I visit op shops and sift through everything to find good quality clothes of every size and gender. Occasionally I take clothes donations as well.
2. I take the clothes home and inspect them carefully. Anything that needs a wash gets a wash, and anything with major issues (holes, bad elastic etc.) generally gets recycled or composted (or listed for $1 in my 'needs repair' collection).
3. Once everything is clean and ready, I photograph each item and categorise it by size, gender, brand, quality, and style, and they all get uploaded to the Lil Thrifters store.
4. When you purchase something, I package it up in home-compostable mail satchels, and post it to you.

The money you pay for your items goes towards:

• The cost I paid to buy the items secondhand
  
• Labour costs to pay a reasonable wage for the hours I (or maybe one day, others I employ) spend to find items and get all the data into this website
• Costs to recondition items (e.g. power, water & detergent for the washing machine)
• Other business costs like the cost to host and run this website
• As I'm just starting out, any profits left over are invested back into the business to allow me to expand, e.g. to one day rent a larger space to store more items.

Other options for buying kids' clothes ethically and sustainably:

If you don't find what you're looking for here, there are other sites out there! Some with new ethical clothes (generally quite pricey), and others just like this one, selling secondhand. I have a page listing them here.