I have written several blog posts about the environmental impact Mannequin Madness has made in reducing waste in the retail industry.
Our mannequin recycling business is not only making a difference to the community environmentally, but economically as well.
Shortly after I started Mannequin Madness in 2001, I was profiled on CNN. The segment was seen by Roz Mita, who had just started a mannequin rental business in London called Mannakin Limited.
Roz sent me an email introducing herself and asking me questions about my business and we started communicated via Skype.
Roz and I met in person when I won a contest sponsored by British Airways with small business owners. They flew me to London. This allowed Roz and I to swap mannequin stories and brainstorm on how we could collaborate.
As a result of experience with retailers in the US, Roz started advocating for retailers in the UK to recycle mannequins. And soon she was flooded with mannequins from a major chain that was retrofitting their stores.
According to this article in The Daily Mail, she went from being a penniless retail consultant to building a thriving business with several employees. She now has a compound she calls “Dollywood” where she sells, rents and refurbishes mannequins. Check out Roz at her compound below:
Mannequin Madness has indirectly had an economic impact on other businesses as well. For example, we’ve been paying rent for the past severn years on a warehouse in a urban area that had been vacant. So needless to say our landlord is happy. And we are moving to a larger building in June 2016 owned by the same landlord.
We’ve provided steady income for a variety of independent contractors (web designer, virtual assistant, bookkeeper, photographers, etc) and will be hiring 3 employees when we move to the new space.
We’ve make it possible possible for small retailers, museums and non-profits to purchase high-end mannequins at a discount price. The used mannequins that we’ve recycled from high-end retail stores allows these organizations to buy more, yet spend less. They can apply the savings to other areas of their business.
In addition to our discounted prices, we do not have a minimum quantity requirement. So a purchase of a mannequin is easily attainable for private individuals, crafters and makers.
Speaking of crafters and makers, our DIY tutorials for Dress Form Christmas Trees and Floral Designs on mannequins are hugely popular on Pinterest.
These tutorials have been downloaded by people around the globe who make them for both personal and business reasons. We love that we can are a catalyst for people to use their imagination to create these projects.
Niche non-tech businesses like ours are often overlooked in the media, so thank you for reading this to give us the chance to share what we do and what we do for others. We work with a bunch of stiffs and dummies – and we love it!
