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In Tunisia, the start-up Dabchy, an online clothing sales platform, has nearly a million users. The first of its kind in the country and founded in 2016, it has shown resilience in the face of the pandemic, but also the economic crisis that the country is currently going through. Next step for Dabchy, setting up in Egypt.
In the premises of Dabchy in Tunis, phone calls follow one another within the operations room: after-sales service, deliveries, refunds, this online clothing sales platform between individuals attracts nearly 25,000 new subscribers per month. A challenge for co-founder Ameni Mansouri. ” Dabchy is the Vinted of the Mena region, we wanted it like that from the start. It’s an online platform that allows people to empty their dressing room in a secure way and we operate as a trusted third party. ».
A confidence that took time to settle in the ecosystem of online sales, still in its infancy in Tunisia because of the brakes on internet payment and logistical problems. ” People in the North Africa, Middle East region, when they buy online, are mostly afraid of being scammed. Educate the market and delivery providers, payment providers, customers, it requires a lot of energy, a certain local knowledge and that, we learned to do it “, explains the co-founder of Dabchy.
The success of second-hand fashion
The price of clothing has increased by 1.5% in 2022 due to inflation and the second-hand clothing sector is forecasting a 20% increase, due to the taxation imposed by the new finance law. Sales in textiles have fallen considerably over the past two years while second-hand is developing more and more. ” There, what you see are items that have been returned to us. When there is an article that the buyer does not like, it happens that the sellers do not recover their articles. We still don’t know why, asks himself Ameni Mansouri. After 21 days, these clothes become the property of Dabchy and we donate these items to associations ».
40% of Dabchy’s products are new clothes. The platform also relies on the resale of luxury items. ” We launched Dabchy luxury, which is a section where people will post luxury items for sale and from a certain amount and for certain well-defined brands, so it’s luxury, these items will pass through We. We will authenticate them ».
With nearly 2,500 new products coming online every day, Dabchy wants to export its system to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is looking to raise three million euros for this development.
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