Port, petunias and pot: Bunz bartering app arrives in Edmonton
'Our banned items are prescription drugs and illegal weapons and ammo'
Hundreds of Edmontonians are kissing cash goodbye and giving their wallets a rest in favour of a new form of commerce.
Bunz is a Canadian-made bartering app that allows members to swap and shop anything they want, with only one rule: no cash.
Even if you're flat broke, you can still acquire new things or get some work done.
From old vinyl records and designer clothes to skilled trades like taxidermy and carpentry, the listings are full of possible trades, ranging from the odd to the mundane.
"I traded a potato cookbook and I got a vampire costume and a collection of Garfield comics," said Erin Stark, who has had the app since an Edmonton-specific version of the site was launched in August.
"My mother gave me the potato cookbook because I really love potatoes, so it was kind of joke. And I just like having different costumes for Halloween.
"The more people that are on there, the more diversity of things are there, so you will be able to make cooler trades."
'It's a great way to save money'
One person's trash is another person's treasure. The people behind Bunz are counting on it. The little Canadian swap group has exploded in popularity since it began about three years ago.
After gaining hundreds of users in its hometown of Toronto, and 80,000 users worldwide, the company is slowly gaining a foothold in Alberta.
So far, there are 300 active members on the Edmonton app, and Eli Klein, one of the company's marketing managers, is confident it will take off.
"We're gaining hundreds of users a day," said Klein. "We're everywhere.
"It's a great way to save money, and also environmentally conscious."
Originally from Edmonton, Klein got involved with Bunz after reading over a record contract in exchange for a tray of brownies, a trade he made with one of the company founders.
"It was supposed to be a 60-minute meeting," Klein said.
"And we ended up sitting and talking for four hours, just about the concept of Bunz and how powerful this bartering economy is in a city that's super broke and underemployed."
Bartering gone bad
Bottles of wine and potted plants are common commodities on the site. But some trades have involved illegal drugs and sexual favours.
Klein says these dubious items have forced the company to crack down, creating new rules and filters in an attempt keep their pages free of "bad stuff."
"Our banned items are prescription drugs and illegal weapons and ammo," said Klein.
"And we've had to expand that to include bodily fluids, because people search for clean urine, for example, for drug tests."
Bunz also bans other dangerous items, Klein said. "We don't want people in our community to get diseases from shared things."
Although site monitoring doesn't catch every questionable item, Klein says people mostly "play by the rules" and use the site for "good things."
From personal experience, he knows most of the trades are focused on fashion, furniture, food and drink.
"You mostly see wine and cheese now. I have so many wheels of cheese."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Ariel Fournier