Yahoo Finance This mom started a company that makes it effortless for parents to get rid of old baby gear, make money and reduce waste at the same time
Mom and GoodBuy Gear co-founder Kristin Langenfeld started a company that makes it easier for families to resell their old baby gear and reduce waste in the process.
Video transcript
KRISTIN LANGENFELD: It's something that we don't really think about, but, like, one of the best things that you can do for the environment is buy something that already exists.
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Hi, I'm Kristin Langenfeld, CEO and co-founder of GoodBuy Gear. We make it super easy for families to participate in the circular economy. And what that means is that you don't have to buy brand new items and spend a fortune.
You can have the best gear for your children. You can buy them secondhand, open box. You can pay a fraction of the cost and still get them delivered to your doorstep. We make it easy for families to then get those items back into circulation.
We come to your doorstep. We pick it up, all the gear that your kids have outgrown. We bring it to one of our facilities. We quality check it. We price it. We photograph it. We clean it.
And then we make it available on our marketplace for families across the country to shop and have it delivered to their doorstep. So it's really easy, and it's a great service for families to buy the best items for their kids and not feel guilty about it.
GoodBuy Gear was started, like many companies, where it was a personal pain point. I had a young baby who needed a ton of stuff that was extremely expensive. And I didn't want to buy it full price and wanted to try to buy it secondhand and had asked some friends, like, hey, how do you guys acquire these items, you know? And they said, oh, just join this group, this moms group.
And so I went on. And at the time it was a listserv. Now it's a Facebook group. But you have to go on and apply, and then to buy something you literally-- you have to know the lingo, and then you go back and forth. And people are so flaky. And then you drive to their house, and it's super sketchy. And have to, like, negotiate. It's super awkward and a complete waste of time.
And I was like, surely there's got to be a better way to do this. And there wasn't, you know, other than that. So I said, well, maybe-- maybe it's just me who has this problem. And I sent a survey out to that same group, and I had over 100 responses. And 80% of the people said they were in the same boat. And that was when I decided, well, maybe I should do something about it.
Families participate in the circular economy for a lot of reasons, and one is because it's a smart thing to do. You save money. But it also has a really, really positive impact on the environment. And it's something that many people don't realize, but buying something secondhand eliminates the need to manufacture it new. So it actually saves its carbon footprint by over 82%.
So there's a really wonderful impact that you can have by choosing to buy and sell secondhand and be part of the circular economy. 64% of consumers want to participate in the secondhand economy, but it just takes too much time.
As a parent, your most precious resource is time, and you don't have time to do any random things. You need to be focused on the most important thing in the day, spending time with your family. It's not talking to strangers on Facebook and meeting up in a parking lot.
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