Hangers don’t usually get a lot of attention. However as the garment industry starts to give sustainability almost as much attention as next season’s trends, these overlooked devices are moving from the stockroom to the board room.
Why would CEO’s start thinking about hangers? Turns out the humble hanger is one of the biggest contributors to plastic waste at retail. Most standard clip hangers are single-use and were not designed with recycling in mind. Hangers that start off using less plastic – and then are easy to recycle – can be game changers for retailers who want to meet sustainability goals.
A Simple Way to Reduce Plastic
Guy Taylor recognized this and invented the Janger, a clever device purpose-built for displaying bottoms on the selling floor.
“The Janger uses 60 times less plastic than a clip hanger. Because it’s made from a single material, it’s easy to recycle it,” said Mr. Taylor, The Janger’s founder.
In the UK alone, around 70 million pairs of jeans are sold, many of which are displayed on clip hangers. According to a University of Sheffield research study, by switching to Jangers the retail sector could save about 54 tons of plastic for every million hangers they use, as well as slashing the carbon footprint of their hangers.
From Fumbling to Fast
Beyond the plastic use, clip hangers were not designed for speed or convenience.
As anyone who has been involved in keeping a busy retail selling floor stocked – and keeping that stock tidy – traditional clip hangers are clumsy and time consuming to use.
By hanging jeans, shorts, chinos or even casual skirts by their belt loops, garments are presented in an appealing way that makes it easy for shop assistants to maintain.
Garments hung on standard clip hangers look good when they are first placed on the selling floor. However all it takes is a few customers rifling through the display for those hangers to start to get tangled up. The garments start to fall off of the hangers, making the situation worse. The next customer approaching the display now has to sort through a jumble of garments and hangers to try and find their size. It’s inconvenient – and visually unappealing.
Shop assistants must constantly spend time sorting out the displays and re-clipping the garments back on the hangers.
Not only does the Janger prevent this from happening, it also saves retail staff from having to re-hang garments after a customer has tried them on.
The lightweight Janger stays attached to the garment’s belt loop during garment fitting. Unwanted garments can be quickly and easily restocked.
Six Big Savings for Retailers
- Uses 60 times less plastic than a classic clip hanger.
- Costs about 60% less than a standard clip hanger.
- Reduced freight costs since Jangers have 63% less volume than standard clip hangers.
- By applying the Janger at the factory, garments go directly from box to retail rail.
- Because Jangers are made from only one material, they are very easy to recycle.
- Jangers can be reused multiple times (as many as 50X for the rugged version).
