A toy-swapping platform for families, used by a pilot school

Context

A personal project, built with my second son.

The problem

In every family, toys, games and cards sit forgotten in cupboards while children dream of something else. Swaps between pupils already happen, but informally, without rules and often unbalanced. Existing barter platforms target the general public: as far as we know, none is designed for a school community.

The approach

1. A points system rather than direct barter: offering an item earns points, which you spend to get another one. No need to find someone who wants exactly what you're offering.

2. A closed community for each school, so swaps stay between families who know each other.

3. A project designed at a child's level, which made it possible to explore the circular economy, the value of things and how a currency works, in a concrete way.

What's transferable

A marketplace works if it solves the critical-mass problem: start with a small, dense community, here a school, rather than aiming at everyone from day one. That's as true for a consumer platform as for a B2B service.

Links

• jouetswap.com →