School Uniform Brisbane – How We Arranged A Uniform Swap

Many families in our Brisbane neighborhood are finding finances tight during the ongoing recession, and as a result a group of us parents recently got together to arrange our first“School Uniform Brisbane Recession Buster” swap. We decided to include three schools in our locality, and the idea was that parents could swap still wearable school uniform Brisbane items for coupons that could later be exchanged for other items of clothing or educational supplies. Although it was our first time arranging such an event, it was an outstanding success with many mums claiming they had saved up to $100 on what they would usually have had to fork out for a new school uniform.

Here I share some of the tips we picked up along the way on how to make a school uniform swap successful, so you can hold your own school uniform exchange in your local area.

Exchange System

 

First a payment structure will need to be decided. We organisers decided on a coupon system. Two volunteers were put in charge of the pricing and each item that was bought into the exchange was assigned a dollar amount. For example, I took in my younger son’s school blazer which was still in reasonable condition but outgrown. I was given a $15 ticket in exchanged which I later swapped for two jumpers and a gym skirt. The blazer cost me around $80 new, but that is not the point of the exchange - the dollar amount assigned supposed to reflect what a parent would be happy to pay for the uniform item without assigning such a low price that it would be unfair to the seller.

We also invited parents to donate unwanted items. Naturally many people had items from last year which are no longer needed because their children have left school, and many parents were happy to bring the items in as a gesture of goodwill although they did not receive any compensation. These donated items were also assigned a dollar amount, and made up around 20 percent of the stock.The money from the items donated was used to pay the owner of the hall where we held the swap. Alternatively you can ask to hold it in a school hall, but we felt as we were covering several schools it was more straight-forward to hold our event in a location that was not affiliated with any of the schools.

We also had an area where coffee, soft drinks and packaged snacks were sold. This further raised money towards the event and gave parents a place to sit down and have a chat.

It was also possible to purchase items at the assigned price without having any goods to exchange. One mum who is new to the area managed to get the most expensive school uniform items she needed for her daughter at a cost of around $40 - a big saving compared to if she had bought the items in the school uniform shop. 

Policies

 

For future events we decided that we will make the policies of our items donated a little clearer. Some of the items were not really in a condition that could be re-worn, and yet they were assigned a dollar amount as the price assigners did not want to upset the owners of the items. This meant a number of items were left over that had been given a price ticket, and therefore cut into the profits and the amount paid to the hall owner.

Alternative

 

Arranging a school uniform exchange takes quite a lot of organizing, and you will need to have a certain volume of people interested in participating for the event to be successful. If you live in a small town, or you do not have time to organise an event, remember buying your school uniforms online can save you a lot of money over purchasing in brick and mortar stores. Many online school uniform retailers sell identical items as the school uniform shops – but prices are lower due to smaller overheads.