Estonians seem to be at least as passionate about the environment and conscious consumption as Finns are. This is revealed by usage data from the pre-owned clothing webstore Emmy. During the first two months after launch, Emmy's sales in Estonia reached a level close to Finland, relative to purchasing power. Items sent for sale to Emmy are following a similar pattern. Emmy’s partnership with Kaubamaja, beginning in November, might even lift Estonia above Finland in these comparisons.

Emmy is the largest online store and sales service for pre-owned brand clothing in Finland. Emmy launched their operations in Estonia at the beginning of September. The performance of the first two months have been a positive surprise for the company, as sales have almost equaled those in Finland when taking into consideration that the overall market for clothing and textiles in Estonia is one seventh in size compared to Finland (~15%, source: stjm.fi).

Sales in Estonia are expected to grow beyond the reference value of Finnish sales with the beginning of a partnership with Kaubamaja, which runs luxury department stores, as well as the grocery store chain Selver. "Emmy has been operating in Finland for over three years now, so in this sense too we can say that Estonians are even more enthusiastic than Finns about recycling quality clothes from one user to another," says Emmy CEO Juha Mattsson.

Estonians have also been active in putting clothes up for sale. "In September and October, we've had three drop boxes in the Tallinn area for collecting items for sale, but with the Kaubamaja-Selver partnership, the number will increase to about 15 by Christmas. In Finland, we currently have about 40 sales boxes," Mattsson continues. The number of items put up for sale by Estonians in October was about one tenth of the number in Finland, but the figure is expected to multiply during the rest of the year with the introduction of the new boxes.

It's therefore no wonder that Kaubamaja, the Estonian pioneer in commerce, immediately seized the partnership offered by Emmy. Kaubamaja owns the grocery store chain Selver, so it was easy for them to offer about a dozen new locations for Emmy boxes at the beginning, with several new locations added each year over the next five years.  

" It's important for the environment that we all focus on buying durable, high-quality clothing and in directing them to someone else’s use when we no longer need them ourselves. We at Kaubamaja want to promote this by offering those selling clothes with Emmy, an extra earnings of 10% when they choose to have their Emmy sales profits paid out on our Partner gift cards," says Kaubamaja's marketing director Enel Kolk. Partnerkaart is a customer loyalty program owned by Kaubamaja whose gift cards are valid currency at Kaubamaja and Selver as well as with several partners.

Emmy's popularity has skyrocketed in Finland as well. The number of second-hand items bought from the emmy.fi online store between July and September was almost three times bigger than during the same period last year. The number of items put up for sale has been growing at a simlar pace. During Emmy's three years of existence, more than 350,000 second-hand brand clothes, accessories, shoes or purses have been sold or directed to charity through the service. The webstore currently offers a selection of more than 80 000 pre-owned items with each being manually inspected and photographed by Emmy. Emmy's partners in Finland include Polarn O. Pyret, Stockmann, Reima and Vimma.

More information:

Juha Mattsson, CEO, Emmy Clothing Company, juha@emmy.fi, puh. 041 533 6400

Enel Kolk, Marketing Director, Kaubamaja,Enel.Kolk@kaubamaja.ee, phone +372 667 3300

About Emmy

Emmy is a pioneering service for consumers to effortlessly recirculate brand clothing that they no longer need. Reinventing the way people sell and buy pre-owned items, Emmy offers a unique, one-step service for people to wake up the money sleeping in their wardrobes. Emmy reduces self effort to minimum by taking care of sorting, inspecting, photographing, and selling pre-owned items at the Emmy online store. The owner gets up to 80% of sales, and for shoppers Emmy offers a selection of 80 000+ items from quality brands with compelling second hand prices, secure & safe shopping, and and a return option.

About Kaubamaja

Kaubamaja AS (www.kaubamaja.ee) is a company belonging to Tallinna Kaubamaja Group, which owns also Selver AS, Selver Latvia SIA, Kulinaaria OÜ, Viking Security AS, Tallinna Kaubamaja Kinnisvara AS, Tartu Kaubamaja Kinnisvara OÜ, SIA TKM Latvija, Verte Auto SIA, UAB TKM Lietuva, KIA Auto AS, AS Viking Motors, KIA Auto UAB, Forum Auto SIA, TKM Auto OÜ, OÜ TKM Beauty, OÜ TKM Beauty Eesti, AS TKM King and Rävala Parkla AS. Consolidated audited revenue of Tallinna Kaubamaja Group in 2017 was 651,3 million euros. Company’s shares are listed on Tallinn Stock Exchange since 1996.