Cos partners with Visa and United Repair Centre on circular initiative

Fashion retailer Cos has become one of the first partners of Visa’s new Recommerce Behavioural Insights Lab, an initiative running experiments to understand how consumers can be helped in engaging with a more circular economy.

The financial services firm hopes to partner with leading brands on the cause in order to aid in bridging the gap between ‘intention’ and ‘action’ among shoppers, with the goal of encouraging more circular shopping habits and business models.

Cos and the United Repair Centre will be participating in Visa’s first two experiments, both set to take place across Europe, including in the UK and France.

As part of the initiative, Cos will be looking into the motivations and experiences that increase consumer participation in the resale market.

Next to this, United Repair Centre will offer its repair services to European apparel brands in a bid to explore the barriers that stop consumers from repairing garments.

Experiments will be open sourced and tested among consumers both online and in-store to gather a better understanding of what triggers behavioural shifts.

In addition, Mindworks, Twig and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be joining the Lab as foundational partners, with the latter to also incorporate its circular design principles into the project.

The launch of the initiative builds on Visa’s recently announced commitment to Recommerce as it looks to push for the transition to a circular economy through relevant commerce models.