Buying used items as a college student can be pretty tough at times. Wading through Facebook and Craigslist searching for the perfect couch can be a bear, with so many options and yet no good ones to choose from.
If you do happen to find the fabled item that actually ticks all your boxes, you then have to meet up with your seller who may or may not be a serial killer or some crazy looking pothead. Sure, it might be nice to have a nice coffee table, but is it really worth going through all that trouble?
Don’t fear then, as Tradeversity is here to help meet all of your selling needs!
Arriving in Clemson University early last January, Tradeversity is a mobile app that allows students to buy, sell and trade various items like books, calculators, and furniture.
All of this sounds good, but what differentiates Tradeversity from sites like Craigslist? For starters, it’s only for Clemson students, with one of the required fields during the sign up process is your student email address.
“It makes it much more personal than it would be otherwise,” said Scott Liggett, the freshman campus representative for the app.
“You know exactly who you are dealing with; you won’t meet some random stranger.” Plus, that means that no shipping is required, a major plus for those bigger items.
The app isn’t limited to home amenities either.
“We’ve seen people put up listings for rooms, as well as personal services like moving help and haircuts,” said Ligget.
The app itself is also constantly being worked on and added to, with the latest 2.0 update adding a built in messaging service, which allows for easier communication between the buyers and sellers.
Getting involved in a startup company like Tradeversity is a pretty big deal, especially for two freshman, so how exactly would one even go around getting in a position that big?
“Really the only thing I can say is to just go up and talk to people,” said Roshan Mathi, another representative with the company. “The only reason we even managed to get to where we are now was by speaking to a guy who turned out to be the founder of Tradeversity.”
However, the most important thing to the fledgling startup is keeping it personal with the students. “We met with the founder himself at an interest meeting in 2015,” said Roshan. “He seemed like a great guy and wanted us to join up and help bring it over to Clemson.”
Currently, Tradeversity is only available for five select universities, and for the time being they are planning on keeping it that way.
“While we are still working on increasing our team size eventually, it has been much easier to bond with the crew that we have now,” said Scott.
“We have group calls every Monday and its really cool to talk to other students who are so passionate about making Tradeversity work. We can assure you that everyone here at Clemson will like where Tradeversity is heading.”
