It started for selfish reasons. My family had moved from Tāmaki Makaurau to Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay in 2018 with a 2-year-old and a baby of six months.
Children’s stuff is expensive, and with no family nearby to pass on hand-me-downs, our options for accessing affordable children’s clothes and equipment were limited. Local op shops at the time didn’t hold much choice for us. The kids’ markets that popped up every few months in Auckland were non-existent in Hawke’s Bay, so I decided to create the Pop-up Kids Market.
The concept is simple but very effective. For a small fee to cover venue hire, parents sign up for a stall and sell clothes, toys, books and equipment that their tamariki have outgrown.
The shoppers are other whānau, parents and parents-to-be, looking for bargains and to make their money go further. It has grown and matured in the past four years with lots of repeat stallholders and customers – kids grow up and grow out of things fast!
Having children can cost a lot. According to BNZ’s baby calculator, in 2018 a new pēpi cost about $16,000 a year – it’s no doubt more now. Most of it will be childcare expenses but a good chunk is clothes and the other big-ticket items such as cots, strollers, baby carriers and so on. Buying things new makes the bills rack up fast.
