We pitched different groups of people in order to get ideas about the needs and benefits that could be found when people are moving to a new city for a short period of time. We talked with:
1. Old exchange students that have been studying abroad
2. Exchange students now studying in Finland
3. Finnish students
4. International coordinator in Finland
5. University tutors
6. Second hand shop
Our hypothesis:
Need = You need a market place where you can easily buy things that you know that you won't need after a certain period of time (exchange students / local students moving to a new city)
Benefit = You will save money by buying used books, furniture, clothes, other equipment that other students have used and don't need anymore.
The second hand stores' (both physical and e-stores) offerings are too wide and there are no time-effective ways to find things targeted especially to students.
1. Old exchange students abroad
2010 in England, Floriane Bosch
2011 in Italy, Ronja Rosman
2006 in Réunion
a) Were there stuff that you needed to buy when you arrived, and you already knew wouldn't need in the near future?
b) Did you buy some stuff that you needed to get rid of after your visit?
c) Did you know a local second hand shop? Why didn't you sell your staff there ?
d) Do you think a second hand shop for student staff or an organization helping students to exchange their staff would be useful for you ?
e) Other notes
a) England:
Fortunaly, when I moved, my new flat was filled out so I already had kitchen and bedroom staff. Yet, I wanted to made my own home so, with my roommate, we bought a couch first and then a TV. But for this, we needed to find a second hand shop or knew people who give up some of their staff. It took us long time before find the right second hand shop and the staff we wanted. Maybe 1 month.
Italy:
Yes, my flat didn't have any furnitre or kitchen equipment so I needed to buy a lot of stuff. All the kitchen equipment, towels, bed sheets, clothes and other bigger equipment that I didn't bring with me there. There was also no started kit for exchange students and all of us (120 students) bought the stuff we needed for ourselves. Luckily there was Ikea pretty close to our city and we organized rides there with other students.
b) England:
Yes again, for instance the couch, or some interior decoration you didn't want to bring at home in France. First we wanted to sell them but at the end of our year, we didn't have enough time to plan this. So we just let them in our flat and left.
Italy:
Yes. I tried to take most of the stuff with me, but it wasn't possible. Also, the organization that organized our flats for us didn't want us to leave anything there so we needed to get rid of everything that we couldn't take with us. I would have liked to leave something for the next students.
c) England:
First because of the time. Then, because the second hand shop we found had really old stuff, it was more antique than staff for student. Maybe we could sell them back the couch but not all our book or clothes.
Italy:
I didn't know any second hand shops there.
d) England: Of course it would. I was in a pretty big city with more than 25 000 thousands students, even, there weren't organization as this. It's a shame I think.
Italy:
Absolutely! It would make it easier to start the 'visit' if you knew that you wouldn't have to go around searching all that equipment around the city.
e) “When living abroad you can practically survive anything, mostly because you know it’s just temporary”.
Instead of looking at this as a problem she felt like this is nearly compulsory when you are an exchange student. “You can’t bring your whole home with you when you travel, but isn’t that part of the journey? Otherwise you might as well stay at home.”
To summarize, this student needed some staff when she arrived. She found them in a second hand shop in her city but not as easily as she thought. Then, she wouldn't keep some of them but it wasn't really convenient for her, because there weren't a lot of places to sell them.
2. Exchange students now in Finland
Interview with Samantha Mannaert, Exchange student Salo
When I moved into the house, the hous was already fornuted with a bed, desk and closet. Alsof the sharing kitchen and bathroom had everything I need. Some of the bedrooms in Hakis are bigger then the other one and they can use a couge or something, but my room is to small to put extra furniture in it. So I bought nothing extra. Also I was very good prepared with the winter clothes, I bring a lot from home. Compare to other exchange students, they didn’t even bring a wintercoat and winterboots with them. They have to buy everything here, and the shops are not that cheap over here. Besides that the nearest town where you can shop is Turku, in Salo there is nothing. The only thing I realy wanted was a bike. At Hakis is a garage whit bikes, but the all of them are broken or they are locked and there is no key. In our group were more students who wanted to buy a bike because the centrum of Salo is 30 minutes of walking from our house. We searched for a bike shop and second hand shops. I can tell you there are not a lot in Salo. They second hand shop did not have that much choice and the bike shop is realy expensive. Finaly we have found a store who sold the bikes to us for a nice price.
What are you going to do with the bikes when your leaving?
I don’t want to spend that much time with selling my bike, si I think I will bring it to a second hand shop or I just leave it here in the garage for the new students.
Will it help you if there is an organisation or shop where you can buy stuff like bikes from Finnish students or old exchange students, and where you can sell your old stuff when your leaving?
Yes, maybe it is a nice idea. It saved a lot of time at the end of your journey here. You don’t have to look for a second hand shop who wants your stuff or to sell by yourself. Now you just leave it behind and you earn no money with it.
3. Finnish student
Vaasa/Turku
She explained that she does try to not buy anything “extra”. She did remind me though that rather than space and place, it’s usually her economy that decides what she can and can’t buy. That’s why when she moves back to her home town she’s going to bring everything with her. If though there are things that she doesn’t need (she gave examples like a book shelf or a microwave) she will try and firstly ask if any of her friends or family members need them. If not, she might sell them on findit. (Again a new buy/sell site that I wasn’t familiar with) Though selling stuff online is considered easy and cheap she was a bit unsure if it was really worth it. “It’s sometimes just easier to throw out your old stuff than bother to try and get money for it”. She was though interested in helping out the community by giving her stuff to those who might need it (like exchange students).
4. International coordinator in Finland
Reetta Partala
Every year again there are comming exchange students and asking for bikes because the city is far away from Hakis. First we had a few bikes they could rent for 15 euros per semester. But at the end of time they never get the bikes back. So the school stopped with that. I am looking for a salution with the Business Academy to arrange a kind of bike rental project. Also the students always looking for some new furniture. At the moment it is only possible to buy some furniture at the second hand shop.
We don’t use real lecture for the courses, the students have to choose their own lecure and they can rent it from the library. Also their is the possibility to get an e-book from our school system.
Last year the Erasmus group bought a lot of warm clothes, but htere was not a very cold winter. So at the end of the semester they put al the warm clothes together and everyone create a funny outfit and they hold a party with it. Then they let some clothes behind for the next students.
5. University tutors
Exchange student tutor, Juhani Lammi
Exchange student tutor, Own experience
a) Are there stuff that you need to buy now, but you know that you won't need in the near future? (Books, furniture, clothes, bikes etc.) Do you have some stuff that you own now and know that you don't need it in the near future?
Obviously there are a lot of stuff I need to buy now, just for my student life. It would be great if I could buy a car just during the time I need to get money in order to travel around the world. I am a student, so everything I own now I won't need in the future, you can always get new stuff.
b) Do you know any place you could buy or sell this stuff easily?
According to me, Internet is the best place to sell and buy stuff, because the offer is very large, you can find all kind of things, at every prices and near to you.
c) Do you already use that kind of service?
Yes I used this kind of service before and if I wanted to sell something now, I think I just take a picture of the products and then tell about their/its condition and set a starting price and people can start bidding.
d) Own experience
After working as an exchange student tutor for a couple of years I have encountered some problems. Though I find it amazing that TYS (http://www.tys.fi/sv) helps out exchange students with this and that there are some issues. First of all, though the starting package for the students is useful, sometimes the boxes are hideous. Not only is it a lot of work to finally get the box but the office is only open once a week, for a couple of hours. And when you finally move back home they never return their starting packages which leads to a 50€ no refund. Expensive and ineffective.
6. Second hand shop
We discussed about what customers they get and though some foreigners do walk into the shop they couldn’t tell if they were students or not. We also discussed the effect media has had on their shop. “Due to tori.fi, facebook, and other media people are easier to get in touch with. Today you only need to take a picture of what you want to sell and post it online and in an hour or so someone will contact you and buy it. And all of this is done for free, in your own home!”
When discussing about some kind of social-media-secondhand-shop they just said that I wouldn’t be the first one to start that idea, and probably not the last. The hard part isn’t to open up a shop online, the hard part is to get people to go to your shop in the world wide web. I’m not sure if this interview was a positive or negative thing for our idea…
7. Summary
We still believe that there is a customer need for this kind of service but we are still unsure how it would practically work. Would it be a secondhand shop, internet page like tori.fi, a “walk into my house and grab what you need event” or just a facebook group? Instead of getting answers from my interviews we ended up with more questions.
