The Paperclip team were lucky enough to spend last weekend on the south coast for the launch of the University of Southampton SU marketplace.
A total of 23,000 students are currently enrolled at the Russell Group university, which has campuses in Southampton, Winchester and now Malaysia. Recognised at home and abroad, the university has a great reputation and is listed in the top 20 UK universities in both The Complete University Guide and The Times Good University Guide 2019.
Paperclip began speaking with the team at the University of Southampton Students' Union, or 'SUSU', back in April of this year. Much like our initial discussions with the SUs at Brunel, King's College London and Keele, we pitched the idea of bespoke, sustainable marketplace which would allow students to buy, sell and swap everything they need for university. A marketplace which allows students to both save and make money.
After travelling down to Hampshire to meet the SUSU team, we pushed ahead with a test site. A few days later, the official SUSU marketplace was live.
Marketing the marketplace
Once work on the marketplace had been completed, the Paperclip Marketing Team began collaborating with the Design Team to create an effective print and digital campaign to help familiarise Southampton students with their new marketplace.
We also began recruiting a team of SUSU Student Brand Ambassadors to spread word of the new marketplace across campus, starting at our launch at the Southampton Fresher's Fayre.
With our squad assembled, we headed to the packed Highfield Campus and began reaching out to the Southampton student community.
The Paperclip Ambassadors (L-R) Raphaella, Ella, Phoebe and Amy at the launch
From start to finish our Ambassadors worked tirelessly promoting the platform. Their efforts were certainly not in vain with almost a 1,000 University of Southampton students signing up to the marketplace on the day.
Speaking after the event, Pip Doherty, Deputy Director of Union Services at Southampton University Students Union said "The team at SUSU are pleased to be partnering with Paperclip and we are delighted the launch of the marketplace went well."
The team at Paperclip HQ are looking forward to growing the SUSU marketplace community further and adding great new member benefits over the coming weeks.
Does your university need it's own student marketplace? Get in touch.