As the New Jersey weather shows more promise with warmer mornings and slightly sunnier skies, students are letting the near-summer breeze carry away their clothes.
Inboxes are filling with HoagieMail advertising the student sales. Seniors — and some others — are preparing closets and dorms for clean-out before move-out. Stacks of clothes flood our feeds on pre-made Canva templates as students try to make a final quick buck. And soon, Greening Move Out donation bins will pop up across campus.
But is this really the only way to clear out our closets?
This year, students have gotten a second set of senior sale emails, these with the subject line “TigerSwap IOS App.” Away with the repetitive PowerPoint slides and mismanaged phone numbers, and away with the long process of clearing out unwanted items. TigerSwap is attempting to replace HoagieMail as the marketplace for clothes sales.
Vijay Krishnamoorthi ’27, who designed the app over the course of an internship last summer, told The Daily Princetonian he was motivated by what he noticed around him.
“I saw a lot of my friends struggling to buy and find stuff they wanted at the end of the year. And when I wanted to buy shirts and stuff, I would click on the emails, and I would go on and see that this slideshow isn’t actually selling any shirts. So I’d have to go out and find a different slideshow.”
After seeing this lack of connection within our campus community when it comes to buying and selling items, Krishnamoorthi wanted his app to help tackle the issue. Through custom notifications for every user, Krishnamoorthi wants users to be the first in the know on interesting sales. You can swipe through and find items you want just on your phone. “We also let students receive notifications for new listings … you can have it set up on the app so that … you’re the first to know about it,” he told the ‘Prince.’
Unlike previous apps such as TigerRetail that facilitated the sale or thrifting of clothing, TigerSwap is a mobile app, which Krishnamoorthi says makes the user experience easier than if the app were a website.
In addition to stand-alone emails, Krishnamoorthi has advertised his app with sneakily labeled slides in HoagieMail roundups, with links sending you to a brief slide show of their pitch, which range from “#nomoreslides” to “Buy. Sell. Simple.” According to Krishnamoorthi, the app currently has 408 downloads.
I downloaded the app to see what the experience of TigerSwap was like.
Upon opening the app, I was greeted with a feed of items ranging from an Acer Monitor for $60 to a simple crop top for $3. It was easy to navigate the homepage, since I could filter the listings by categories such as pants to shirts.
Familiarizing myself with the rest of the app, I navigated to the sellers tab and uploaded my own items for sale, ranging from women’s clothing to tickets and furniture. Through prompts for me to label, describe, and upload a photo of each item at my liberty, the app made it easy for me to price and categorize my items. TigerSwap was a broad marketplace, but was dominated with an overwhelming amount of women’s clothes; however, it wasn’t as much as the total combined senior sales with women’s options over on HoagieStuff.
In my own past experiences with selling clothing, keeping track of interested buyers from random emails and unknown numbers made it difficult to keep in touch. Then, with navigating through pick-up locations and remembering the original pricing, it all added up to more hassle.
With the app, the process was more streamlined as a seller. I uploaded some items of my own and it didn’t take long to have my first potential buyer interested in a white sweater. Having the feature for interested buyers to direct message sellers for specific items made it easy to mark off the clothing to prevent future offers on items no longer available.
Once I confirmed the price of the items with the buyer, the drop-off location was easy to agree upon since the app allows the seller to determine possible pickup locations — from your residential hall to Frist Campus Center — when you list an item for sale.
As a buyer, the process was just as easy. Clicking on interested items, you can connect with the seller to confirm your interest or ask questions about the item.
If students pick up TigerSwap as an easier way to match buyers and sellers, it could save some clothes from the dumpster. While the donation bin offers a convenient solution to students overburdened with clothes at the end of the year, an overwhelming number of donations can be tracked down to being discarded in landfills or shipped abroad. Connecting clothes directly to their next owner raises the chances of continued use.
“I wanted to oversect sustainability and the student body here on campus in the easiest way possible,” Krishnamoorthi told the ‘Prince.’
Overall, TigerSwap follows through on its promise of its motto, “Buy. Sell. Simple.,” in a neat and organized manner. For anyone who wants to work ahead of the curve in clearing out their closets and ensure their clothes continue to live on in other wardrobes, TigerSwap is a new, useful solution.
Amanda Hugas is a member of the Class of 2027 and a staff writer for The Prospect. She can be reached by her email at ah0942[at]princeton.edu.
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