Looking for a place to buy designer second-hand children’s clothes in the Triangle?

In her few years of being a mother in the Triangle, influencer Cheyenne Levinson hasn’t stopped looking for gaps in opportunities for families, and when she finds them, filling them herself.

This was her intention two and a half years ago when she created the Instagram account Triangle Families Explore. And, it is her intention once again with the opening of her new boutique children’s consignment store, Little Oak Collective, which opened this month at 233 Bickett Blvd. in Raleigh.

Levinson launched Triangle Families Explore, which has amassed over 22,000 followers, to share fun activities for families in the area. She was driven to start the account for a simple reason: no one else was doing it.

While there were websites that connected families to activities in the Triangle, Levinson said there were not any social media accounts dedicated to the same purpose.

“There was like this huge gap in the way that families were getting information,” she said.

So, she decided to make her own — and it took off.

Levinson said followers of her Instagram account have already been supporters of the brick and mortar store and are both actively consigning and shopping.

Over the last two and a half years Levinson and her children — ages 3 and 9 — have explored the Triangle, seeing what gaps in services exist for families in the region.

She realized there were not any children’s boutique consignment clothing stores in Raleigh. While Raleigh does have children’s consignment stores, there are none that have “higher end trendy or boutique brands,” Levinson said.

And aside from consignment stores, there are not many locally owned stores that sell children’s items such as clothes and toys in the Triangle, she added. Levinson said one element that sets her business apart from others is her store’s event space and her ability to interact directly with customers as the owners.

“We all know that the Triangle — and Raleigh specifically — is blowing up over the past few years and it’s becoming such a popular spot for young families to live,” she said.

Resale options growing

According to the Association of Resale Professionals, resale is one of the fastest growing segments of the retail industry. Resale stores in the United States have grown by about 7% over the last two years, according to a 2023 industry statistics and trends report by the organization.

The sustainability aspect of consignment is another reason key Levinson chose to open the store. According to the Boston University School of Public Health, people in the United States throw away more than 34 billion pounds of used textiles, and 66% of that ends up in landfills.

An item Levinson specifically wanted to include in her store were sustainable floaties for children, to fit in with the current summer collection she has displayed. The ones she were able to find are yellow with blue designs. The rest of her store is also curated for summer, including a special section for the Fourth of July with red, white and blue children’s outfits.

Driven by the opportunity she saw, she took the concept of a boutique children’s consignment store as she has seen it in other cities and is putting her own spin on it.

While the idea has been on her mind for years, what made the store a reality was finding the location. She said the building’s positioning off of Capital Boulevard makes it accessible to all parts of the Triangle.

While Levinson is curious to see how business fares, she has been completely booked for consignment appointments in the store’s first week.

Through her appointment system she is hoping to “modernize” the consignment process to make it simple for consignors as well as customers — she uses a software that notifies consignors when their items have sold and deposits the money directly into their bank account. During the appointments, Levinson goes through the items that consignors bring in and decides what to keep and prices them. While some other consignment stores use appointments, many do not require appointments and offer cash on the spot. She also has set up a play area for children to use while their parents shop or consign.

Consignment items in the store range from 40% to 60% off the original price and new items range anywhere from $5 to $50, Levinson said.

Alley Buscemi, a Raleigh real-estate broker and mother of two who first got connected with Levinson through the Triangle Families Explore Instagram, said she enjoys buying used clothes for her kids because they are hard on their clothes and can only wear them for a short period of time.

“Until now there was no kind of boutique [children’s consignment store] — you had to really pick through the racks to find something decent,” Buscemi said.

Importance of sustainability

Sustainability is also important to Buscemi — she tries not to throw away any fabric because of how large a polluter clothing is. She donates items that she cannot consign, and items that she can consign she does.

“The higher brands that I can consign I’m giving to Little Oak to try and get a little bit of money back and then I can re-invest that in high quality brands because they just hold up a lot better,” she said.

She said this helps her to interrupt the cycle of buying inexpensive clothes that then fall apart quickly and are not in good-enough condition to even be donated.

“It just keeps it out of the landfill,” Buscemi said.

More than being a only children’s consignment store, Levinson thinks of her new shop as a sustainable children’s boutique in general. In addition to consigned items, she sells a collection of products from brands that she described as sustainable, fair trade and eco-friendly, including non-toxic nail polish and a non-toxic Playdoh alternative.

Overall, Levinson hopes her new store will be a place that the community can connect with. It’s founding was done with the help of people in the area — Levinson used Kickstarter to help finance the store and raised $15,000 in donations in 10 days.

“The community helped me get to this point,” she said.

The store is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with consignment appointments available every 30 minutes.