WHO NEEDS MONEY WHEN YOU CAN TRADE?
From chick peas to fashion to sex toys, there’s nothing you can’t find on Bunz, a Toronto trading group that’s sparked a revolution in closets across the globe
Last spring, my friend Hailey invited me to join a secret Facebook group called Bums Trading Zone (BTZ). While I’m generally hesitant to join groups or like pages on Facebook, preferring an uncluttered newsfeed, Hailey’s endorsement of the group, which is accessible by invitation only, drew me in. Its description was deceptively simple: “A group where troll trades take place,” it read. “I’ll trade you my bag of sour balls for your Irish Spring! No cash allowed in this zone.” I was addicted immediately. I did my first trade within a week, swapping a pair of my own too- small shorts for coffee. Since then, I’ve swapped barely worn Doc Martens for a week’s worth of fruit and veg, and a cat bed that my orange tabby used exactly two times for a jar of unpasteurized honey; I traded a gift card to a restaurant I’d probably never frequent for 15 subway tokens. Most of my summer wardrobe was the result of trades for wine, cheese or clothing that I no longer wear. And — full disclosure — I have on more than one occasion traded unsolicited media swag for snacks.
When I joined Bums (which has since been renamed Bunz to avoid insensitivity to the homeless), the group was a year and a half into its existence. With just over 1,000 members, it felt like an exclusive club — with mutual compatibility built in. A young woman with whom I once traded four bottles of craft beer for a vintage Marks & Spencer dress insisted I enjoy the beers with her on her patio right then and there. What’s not to like? What started out as a few hundred, then a few thousand, people in downtown Toronto participating in their own micro-economy of barter and trade quickly went viral. The group, with its own language (ISO = “in search of ”) and TTC tokens and tall cans of craft beer as de facto currency, has grown to 31,000 members (and counting).
Launched in the summer of 2013 with a plea for a can of tomatoes from Toronto musician Emily Frances Bitze, Bunz has now grown into 53 groups, including trading zones in Vancouver, Maryland and Tel Aviv, though Bitze says she knows of at least 70 — all spinoffs of the Toronto group, which just launched its own smartphone app.
“I think Bunz resonates with people because we’re not just a Craigslist or Kijiji, where people are simply making transactions,” says Bitze, 32, Bunz’ mastermind and chief administrator — known affectionately as “Mama Bunz” within the group. “We are a community, all connected around the idea of finding value in things we no longer need. Supporting each other is at the core. When money is not part of the equation, it leaves room for more goodwill.”
The popularity makes sense: with its hint of disruptiveness and easy online facilitation, bartering goods is a natural extension of the existing sharing economy, insofar as it bends the rules of the traditional marketplace. It’s also especially suited to a generation that is, statistically, super short on cash. ( But, like everyone else, long on stuff.)
Of course, bartering systems and communities aren’t exactly new. “They sort of turn up in the footnotes in economics textbooks,” says David Laidler, an economist and professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. But Bunz is mainstream in a way that contrasts the kind of capitalist abstinence more readily associated with anarchists and hippies.
Part of this is because of the technology, as Laidler points out. “It’s pretty obviously clear that websites enable you to communicate a lot of info to a lot of people very cheaply,” he says. “So the price of searching for something you want has really gone down.”
Bunz may be the most developed example of a new trading economy, but it’s not the only one. Bondsy is an app that uses the Bunz model, allowing users to trade their unwanted goods for the unwanted goods of others; TradeYa, a startup based on Los Angeles, is much of the same. And in Perth, Australia, authorities are cracking down on a Facebook page called Perth Beer Economy which, according to one Australian news outlet, “involved the bartering of goods and services for hooch.”
The underlying appeal of all ( or most) of these networks, apps and websites is a spirit of minimalism and minimizing one’s footprint, whether financially or environmentally; equal parts Marie Kondo and Greenpeace.
And the burgeoning barter economy isn’t just limited to the exchange of physical goods. On Simbi, for example, individuals can trade their skills — from plumbing and woodworking to tattooing and childcare — for the skills of others ( this is also common on BTZ); on SharedEarth, landowners can loan plots to prospective gardeners, in exchange for part of their crop yield.
On BTZ, the demographic largely skews young — for lack of an official survey and based on personal interactions alone, I’d estimate that the group is largely comprised of people in their 20s and 30s. For members of these generations — for whom the economic climate has not been, shall we say, kind — there is an additional appeal: it kind of feels like opting out of a system that has failed us.
“We use money every single day,” Bitze says. “Bunz brings something new to the table: A human interaction. An economy of things. You may find yourself sitting down for tea with someone after making a trade. You may make a friend or a roommate or a date. Also, as a society we consume so much and create so much waste. I think it is important to the Bunz community that we perpetuate a non-waste economy as best we can.”
Laidler agrees, suggesting that the popularity of Bunz and similar apps and networks could reflect shifting societal values.
“You are participating in a market,” he says, “it’s just not a market in which the standard means of exchange is Bank of Canada liabilities.” Rather, it’s one in which intangible measures — sustainability, yes, but also nostalgia and pride in the sanctity of the trading community itself — are worth more than cash.
For its part, Bunz has evolved groups including the Bunz Helping Zone, Bunz Employment & Entrepreneurial Zone and Bunz Dating Zone to serve an increasing user base’s every cashfree need. There have been meet-ups, controversies and at least one person attempting to trade an actual bricks-and-mortar building (to no avail).
The only rule of BTZ has always been no money, but in the beginning, there was also an unwritten rule: don’t talk about the trading zone. I’ve wanted to write about it since shortly after I joined, but decided not to after a Vice writer did, and drew ire from members worried that exposure would bring the group into the mainstream, at the expense of its community-mindedness.
There are some old- school members who believe this is what’s happening now that the network has grown to include users without a reverence or respect for its egalitarian approach to good and services. My friend Hailey tellingly uses the past tense to describe a time when “everyone would end up happy and people were reasonable.”
Prospective traders get stood up more often these days, some say. Too many Bunz users use the network to solicit advice and air grievances rather than to barter for goods and services, others complain. Arguments have erupted over the trading of inappropriate items — sex toys, which do get posted, but also broken goods, open food, and live animals. There is ongoing debate over value assignments.
Despite growing pains, Bunz and its kind are still pioneering. In January, Cam Zalewski posted a notice to BTZ announcing that his coffee shop — Fool — would be hosting a permanent trading post outside its front doors. The post became one of the most popular in BTZ history, so much so that Bitze is working to have the café designated a safe trading zone for group members who are uncomfortable going to strangers’ homes. As Bunz Trading Zone increases in popularity, in other words, its administrators are working — one step at a time — to make sure it remains a community- oriented, positive environment while fostering its evolution.
“That group has special vibes to it,” Zalewski says. “No matter how many times people try to do things with bad energy, and even with so many people, it’s not going to get ruined by a few duds.”
I mention to Zalewski, who also runs a bike repair shop next door to Fool, that I recently acquired a new bike in a BTZ barter. He tells me to bring it by the shop once I’ve picked it up — “I’ ll take a look at it,” he says, “to make sure it’s rideable.” It’s only after I hang up the phone that I realize I forgot to ask him what he’d accept as a trade for repairs.