How Hanna Andersson’s resale site is boosting his business
By Elizabeth Segran | Published: 2025-10-27 09:30:00 | Source: Fast Company – co-design
In 1995, children’s brand Hanna Andersson debuted matching family pajamas, starting the trend. Three decades later, it has become a tradition for many families to purchase pajamas decorated with reindeer, Christmas trees or menorahs to wear during the holidays. But if you’re worried that your seasonal pajamas might not be environmentally friendly – after all, how much benefit will your child get from Santa Claus jam? – Hannah Andersson has a suggestion for you: why not buy it used?
In 2023, Hannah Andersson launched Hannah May Downsa website for customers to buy and sell used products. If you scroll through the site, you’ll find thousands of gently used Hanna Andersson pajamas for the whole family, as well as dresses, shirts and pants from previous seasons. Since the platform’s debut, Hanna Andersson has become the best-selling children’s brand in the United States, selling more than 160,000 clothing items to 25,000 customers. Interest in Hanna-Me-Downs is growing, with site visits up 30% this year.
Aimee Labeck, who became the brand’s CEO in 2022, helped launch Hanna-Me-Downs and believes he’s been one of the reasons the brand has grown in recent years. (Because Hanna Anderson is a private company owned by private equity firm L. Catterton, it doesn’t share its revenue, but says it has seen double-digit growth since 2019, and even higher levels of profitability.) Other factors include its decision, in 2020, to close all 65 of its stores to become a purely digital direct-to-consumer retailer, and its launch, in 2023, of a rewards program that has nearly a million members.
While it may seem counterintuitive that a resale site would accelerate Hanna Anderson’s growth — because it could cannibalize the brand’s new clothing sales — Lapeck says the opposite is true. Although the platform itself is not profitable, it believes it has brought new customers to the brand, which has also reinforced the message that its products are made to last. “Generalization benefits us from a business perspective,” Labeck says. “It’s a real strong proof point that we sell durable, high-quality clothing.”
Many parents find it difficult to shop sustainably for their children. Children outgrow their clothes quickly and ruin their clothes with stains and tears. In the age of fast fashion, budget retailers, such as Carter’s and Target, market children’s clothing that is so cheap, parents don’t mind if it only lasts a few weeks or months before throwing it away. So it may not seem worthwhile to spend more on expensive, durable clothing.
For more than 40 years – as fast fashion took off – Hanna Andersson has tried to prove that she He is It’s worth spending a little more on quality baby clothes. Her dresses start at $50, and her shirts start at $30. Carter’s sells these products for as low as $15 and $5, respectively.
This focus on quality goes back to the brand’s origins. Hanna Andersson was founded by John Denhart, a Swede who settled in Portland, Oregon. She wanted to design clothing that would allow children to play in the rainy and muddy conditions that were common in the Pacific Northwest.
Today, the company continues to focus on quality, thanks to stringent durability standards. During testing, each garment is washed between 60 and 100 times to ensure the fabric does not fray or fade. Over the years, the company has introduced new eco-friendly fabrics such as certified organic cotton, Oeko-Tex fabrics certified free of harmful chemicals; Its newest material, HannaSoft, is made from plant-based materials. In each case, the new materials are subjected to durability tests.
Hanna Anderson attracted a wide range of clients, Labeck says. Some are wealthy parents who shop other high-end children’s brands, like Petit Patou or Janie & Jack. But others are middle-class families. “Not all of our clients are wealthy,” she says. “Some buy fewer clothes than they would have, others buy second-hand.”
For many years, consumers have been shopping for used Hanna Andersson clothing from other brands’ second-hand sites. Labeck says it made sense for the company to create its own platform so it could engage directly with these fans of the brand. “Our clothes were very popular on ThredUp and Poshmark,” says Labeck. “We thought we had an opportunity to keep these buyers and sellers within the Hanna Andersson ecosystem.”
Resale as a growth engine
Labeck says the brand tries to give Hanna-Me-Downs customers good value for their old clothes. When they send in a used product, they can get 70% of the resale value in cash. If they choose to get store credit on the main Hanna Andersson website, they can get 100% of the resale value. Labeck says 80% of sellers choose the store credit option. The brand found that when these customers used their credit to shop on the Hanna Andersson website, they spent 2.5 times the amount on the gift card.
Besides engaging people who are already big fans of the brand, Labeck says it’s also tapped into a whole new customer base that hasn’t shopped with Hanna Andersson before. This group is attracted to Hanna-Me-Downs’ low prices, and 50% of them will return to the site to stock their children’s closets with used Hanna Andersson clothing. “They end up buying from us multiple times,” she says.
Ultimately, Labeck says the Hanna-Me-Downs program demonstrates that promoting sustainable behavior doesn’t have to come at the expense of profitability. The resale site keeps clothes in circulation in the economy longer, and reinforces the message that it is better to buy fewer items of better quality. “We are excited about how this platform will benefit our customers, the planet, and future generations,” says Labeck.
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