31st May Nottingham Raleigh Park Swap Shop
The Dopplle Swap Shop event at Raleigh Park accommodation, being run for the first time, took part late afternoon in the on-site meeting/leisure building in the centre of the quad. The location was fantastic for students and is a popular place for events to take place; for example the previous day there had been a visit from the Guide Dogs. Although there were restrictions on external students and given an estimated half of the Nottingham Uni students had returned home, the event produced a lot of engagement with students, positive feedback and of course swapping of clothes!
When we arrived at RP we were able to park very close to the building by driving into the main quad area. With the invaluable help of Debbie and Rebecca, plus the Raleigh Park RAs, we were soon up and running with nearly 10 rails displaying over 500 items of clothing! Setup was quick as the layout of the room lent itself to an event type setup. In addition to the clothes we brought an extensive range of supporting items including two pop up tents and a number of Dopplle banners.
The event itself was immediately busy when it opened at 5pm, with students queuing in advance having heard that the event was running. Surprisingly for a new event, we had returners from the previous UP/Jubilee swap shops in March. People were particularly pleased to see that they were still able to spend their unused Dopplle coins from previous events . With a large selection of clothes laid out in a logical manner, and with sizing cubes (a new addition) helping guide people to the best items, people generally stayed for half an hour on average.
At the end of the swap shop everything was re-packed in our cars by 9pm with the help of the RAs who were excellent and stayed until we returned the building to its original state.
In total 59 swaps were recorded, meaning on average an item of clothes changed hands every two minutes that the event was open between 5 and 7 pm! We had two returning Dopplle users and 13 new users. Finally our estimated engagement with the brand was 45 students meaning that roughly every two and a half minutes a student was exposed to Dopplle and swap shops!
Although this was the first RP event, there is immense potential at the site with its community of students filling up 18 accommodation blocks. The success of the other events Dopplle ran at Nottingham, in particular the one at SB on its third swap shop, shows that to get growth with any event, you have to continue to run them on a regular basis with a forward plan of advertising and general marketing. It is recommended that a swap shop week is run at Nottingham every term, with co-ordination between the accommodation and campuses, ensuring that it becomes a regular part of the ResX and student social calendar.