When Brown University seniors Madeline Griswold and Sarah Hall arrived on campus last September, both found themselves in need of an online marketplace. Griswold had extra clothes she wanted to sell, while Hall had an apartment to furnish.
However, the two found bigger, more common exchanges like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and eBay too vast and unknown, and they ultimately didn’t consider them to be safe enough.
So, Griswold and Hall teamed up and founded Zaar, a marketplace exclusively for students at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to buy and sell items from one another.
Zaar is simple to use: Students list items for sale, and buyers make offers. Once an item is purchased, the buyer can select a pickup time, and the seller typically leaves the merchandise on their doorstep, ensuring a contact-free exchange. Sellers can also forgo the process altogether by bringing their products to Griswold and Hall to sell for them.
“We found the two most important things for people were that it was safe and easy. Because of this, people our age, especially women our age, wouldn’t even consider using eBay, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace,” Griswold told Rhode Island Inno. “We put that at the forefront, and that’s why it’s all focused on community and exchanging items with people within your own campus.”
Griswold, a computer science student, built the platform in October, and Zaar launched as a company soon after. Zaar has so far amassed 400 users and completed 50 purchases across the platform.
While Zaar currently does not charge any fees for transactions completed by two independent students, it does take a 20 percent commission when the platform sells products for students.
“It’s pretty crazy how much good-quality stuff people have that they just don’t want,” Griswold said.
Although it’s still early days, Griswold and Hall see opportunities to continue to enhance the platform by adding a product recommendation feature as more items come on the site. They are also considering offering people on campus the opportunity to sell larger items or furniture through Zaar.
Griswold and Hall plan to continue working on Zaar after they graduate and hope one day to be able to expand it to every college campus in the country, leveraging some kind of student ambassador program to help run it on each campus.
Hall says that she and Griswold envision Zaar becoming embedded in the culture of each campus community.
“We hope it becomes almost social and fun,” she said. “All of your friends are on there, so you can see what others are buying and selling. It’s safe and it’s easy. College students are so transient, and it’s so much easier with Zaar to lean into that lifestyle.”
Bram Berkowitz is a contributing writer for Rhode Island Inno.
