Secondhand Clothing Stores In Eastern Europe Are Thriving And Importers Are Directly Benefiting.

In the past few years, the global financial crisis has caused a heavy blow to central and Eastern Europe, but it has been used for a long time.

Industry has sprung up.

Even Western Europeans are compressing family financial expenses, and many people are patronizing discount stores such as Primark.

Wages in Eastern Europe are much lower than those in Western Europe. Many people visit second-hand clothing stores.

Many companies have become rich by running second-hand clothing stores.

In recent reports, second-hand clothing stores have increased rapidly in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia.

Bulgaria's second hand clothing company, mania, has opened new stores in Romania and Greece.

In Hungary, in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand, large scale

Hada, a clothing company, is going to invest 1 million 600 thousand euros to build an old clothing sorting hall.

These companies have bought second-hand clothing from Western European countries, and some of them have not yet worn. Labels are still attached to them.

"From 1995 to 2008, the incomes of eastern and central European citizens will be one percentage point from the average of Western Europe each year, from 35% to 50%.

After the economic crisis, this growth rate dropped sharply.

Analysts say.

In Hungary, the most heavily indebted Central European country, although this year's economic growth has been very large, it is still a long way from the pre crisis level.

The country's secondhand clothing imports amounted to 56 million euros last year, more than 2 times that of 2008.

Hada, which runs second-hand clothing, has 60 branches in Hungary. According to its own estimate, it has controlled about 1/3 of the country's market.

Next year, it will invest 1 million 600 thousand euros to build a sorting hall in the eastern part of Hungary, increasing 150 workers. The total number of workers will reach about 900.

The company imports thirty or forty tons of second-hand clothing from Britain every week.

Up to 32 million 400 thousand euros.

Founded in 1995, it was originally a family business, sorting out second-hand clothes in a village near the border of Ukraine.

"My wife, my grandmother and my sister-in-law came to pick clothes," said founder gekki hada.

The company's response to the financial crisis is to close down stagnant shops and open new stores in stronger purchasing power (including larger shopping plaza).

"I think the crisis teaches consumers how to manage their money," hada said.

In Poland, more than 40% people often buy second-hand clothing. In 2013, the country imported 100 million euros of second-hand clothing, an average of more than 60 million euros over the previous years.

These secondhand garments are mainly from England, Germany and Scandinavian.

Warsaw's Georgia Street is famous for its second-hand stores, where more than a dozen second-hand stores are very close. In general, according to the estimate in 2011, there are about 21 thousand second-hand stores in the country.

The prices of different stores vary widely, ranging from 30 kg (9 dollars) to 80 kg per kilogram.

Bulgaria's second hand clothing company, mania, started business in 1996, and now has 50 branches in 3 countries, employing more than 600 workers.

In the past December, it employed 100 new workers.

The company mainly imports second-hand clothing from the United States, Canada, Denmark and Switzerland.

In Croatia's first Zagreb, many second-hand clothing stores have sprung up in the past ten years.

Nina Belik, 53, runs the oldest second-hand clothing store in Zagreb.

She said, "only one of us was 10 years ago, but now people are becoming more frugal, and second-hand clothing stores are much more frequent.

And these second-hand clothing stores are doing a good job. "

However, Western European households' spending on household finances has also affected the second-hand clothing business in Eastern Europe and central Europe.

The owners of secondhand clothing stores find it difficult to find a good source recently.

"The British are getting poorer and poorer," said Jo LAN, a second-hand clothing store owner in Warsaw. "The clothes they are dealing with are not as good as they used to."