A social media platform that lets you accumulate followers, show off your signature style, discover amazing vintage fashion gems, and make money like a 21st century entrepreneur? Yes, friends, you should get very, very ready to start your spring cleaning a little early – starting with downsizing your closet. If you’re style obsessed and got word of the killer Canadian company Trunk Trend last year – it was featured on Dragon’s Den and caught the attention of Kevin O’Leary – you probably already have a profile. But if you’ve been waiting for the online marketplace to seriously take off before joining (like many of us did back when Facebook seemed like a less exciting MySpace, right?), it’s time to sign up: the site now has an app for iOS and Android. Making more money and shopping for clothes secretly at your day job just got even easier!
If your style feels more like a compromise between your taste and your current financial position, you have absolutely no excuse for not thinking outside the luxury department store now that Trunk Trend has revolutionized the clothing swap experience. Some ridiculously cool Canucks came up with the concept for an online Canadian marketplace that lets members sell clothing and accessories from their closest, both new and used, and keep 80% of the profit for themselves. It beats the alternative of selling things on consignment at second-hand stores or posting things on Kijiji and waiting on street corners to sketchily swap cash for goods with strangers. Trunk Trend also takes care of the shipping and the currency exchange too, making life just that much simpler.
If you’ve made being charitable one of your 2014 New Year’s resolutions, or if you just always donated your clothes in the past for the “feel good” benefit, Trunk Trend also offers members the option of using “Closets & Causes” so that you can raise money for your favourite Canadian cause with your fashion. You can donate up to 100% of your profits or keep a little for yourself too. You get a tax receipt either way to impress your H&R Block accountant with your giving spirit. Can we get a collective, “Aww”?
While making money is a huge perk, Trunk Trend is also a great place to shop for new clothes especially since second-hand shopping by foot can make for long and sometimes miserably fruitless days. We used to bust our buns out to the suburbs just to find second-hand stores that hipsters hadn’t picked through yet, but now we can do all our searching for Holy Grails of “new to you” style from the comfort of our own home and without the fear of contracting bed bugs (judge not – you know you sometimes think you feel itchy in second-hand stores, too). This is one of the best ideas we’ve heard of for fashionable but financially-challenged and frugal university days when we hosted our own clothing swaps. Getting kickass style while actually making money at the same time? Yeah… there’s an app for that.
