Rescued Rails helps clothing retailers clear stock

CLOTHING retailers looking to clear their old stock are getting a helping hand from a 25-year-old former business student from Dublin.

Aly Kavanagh helps smaller retailers shift end-of-line stock without having to mount a sale in store. Picture: Joey Kelly

Aly Kavanagh came to Edinburgh looking for work two years ago and ended up starting her own business.

After noticing that shifting the last items in a line was often a problem for small retailers, she set up online emporium Rescued Rails to help.

The firm promises to free up space in stores by selling end-of-line items on behalf of the owners, allowing them to concentrate on the latest fashions without an in-store sale to tempt shoppers away from full-price purchases.

Kavanagh has already signed up one Edinburgh lingerie shop and is in talks with other retailers. She said: “I noticed there was this huge gap in the market, to help independent fashion retailers clear old, end of the line or stagnant stock from the depths of their store rooms – enabling them to free space and get cash-flow moving.

“This isn’t as a much of an issue for large retailers but for small, local and independent stores it can be crippling to try and keep up.”

Kavanagh, who built the Rescued Rails website herself and has been promoting it using social networks, said she will keep details of her clients confidential as they may not wish to be seen to be discounting. She will take unwanted stock for around two months and attempt to sell it for a pre-arranged price.

She said: “It takes a lot of time and money to create and manage online stores, or use eBay. What I do is remove the hassle out of it.”