Has anyone heard of this?

[jessica31876]

Have you heard of Swap Tree (http://www.swaptree.com/WebFrmLoginRegistration.aspx?mode=join&promotioncode=YHOO_General)? Ever actually traded anything on there? It seems interesting as you can trade books, music, movies and games. I signed up but have not actually tried it. I just wondered if anyone else here was a member and has actually tried it out.

[oohlala]

I was a member of swaptree. I think it is a good concept. I did one trade. It was a three way trade. I traded books, you can also trade games and movies (i think). It was a good trade. They do a one for one trade no matter the value of the book, and I had also listed some of my daughters chapter books from when she was in thrid and fourth grades. The system just looks for a match and then sends a trade notification. If you reject a few trades they stop sending them to you. I may not have had books that people were interested in, and I only rejected one trade, but in a month, I only got one successful trade, and two other trade notifications, both that were rejected by the other party. I was honestly looking to get these books out of the house, and hopefully get a few good reads, but a couple of months later I just deleted all my books and gave them to a local charity.
Pros... they have a way of showing the number of potential trades available to you, they allow you to pay for a shipping labels so it is a no-brainer to ship, and they seem to have a good selection.
Cons... you are somehow penalized for rejecting a trade, and the community forums there are no where near as friendly as here. I read everything on the site to get an answer to a question, but when I read the forum to see if it had already been asked I was shocked at the gruffness and unnecessary unkindness of the responses.
If you have a lot of popular releases it probably is a great site. If you have a lot of paperbacks, there is another trade site just for them. http://www.paperbackswap.com (A friend just recommended this site to me, but I haven't tried it yet.)
Hope this helps,
AL

[jessica31876]

so how are you guaranteed that they will send what you agree to trade? Like for instance if you agree to trade a game or movie or something and you send yours out I assume they send theirs at the same time...what happens if they never really send the movie (or game, book etc?) Or if for instance they say they did not recieve what you sent? That is one of the thing I really wonder about. I have not really looked at the forums so hearing they are unkind or rude is not a great seller for trying the site out. I would mostly want to do it for movies as we have a ton and would like to trade some for something new to watch (and maybe secretly get rid of some of the annoying ones my husband watches over and over and over LOL)

[breakingbrie]

I just joined and already made 2 trades. I think it'll be a lot of fun, a site I'll really like, as long as the trades go good. I just mailed out my 2 items yesterday(dvds) and will get 2 books in the mail. One item has been mailed out(they got a delivery confirmation, so they'll know when it's been delivered to me and I can see everytime they scan the package), and I don't know if the other has been mailed yet. I didn't use their postage, I just took my packages to the post office, and I also got delivery confirmation, so I'll know when the dvds are delivered to them.
I know there are steps you can take to file complaints if you don't receive your item, but even then, they can't go to the person's house and force them to ship your item. I guess that's what the rating/reporting is for. I don't know how quickly swaptree takes care of stuff, but I'm guessing if you're a bad trader, and don't send out items, they ban your account...

For me, I think it'll totally be worth it - I have multiple copies of many disney movies that the girls never got into(and even if they do eventually, I have more) that I only paid $1 for, so it's no big deal for me to trade them for awesome books I've been wanting to read. I'm really hoping my first 2 trades are a good experience, and even if they're not, I'll probaby try again :) lol, there are too many books I haven't been able to buy lately, and I hate checking out at the library, cause when I get and read good books, my next step is to take them to my mom's and drop them off for her to read - as she lives 1 1/2 hours away, it was piling up on my library fines to not get them back in time...lol. This way we can both read them, and I can trade them back out when we're done.

So, yea, I'm pretty excited, but not sure how it's going to go yet! I am impatient, so I'm glad I read the forums - just last night too... apparently most people send books by media mail? And it takes a little bit longer to receive them. I woulnd't have known that, and would have been checking the mail every day - probably still will be, as I'm really excited lol.

If I were you, I would just try it out with an item you won't be too upset to lose if you don't receive something back for it, and see how it works, and if it goes good, just to get a feel for it, that's what I did.

Jeez, sry this is so long! lol, I'm just really excited about this site!

[jessica31876]

LOL Brie...I can tell you media mail can take up to 3 weeks to be delivereed I think (from when I used to do ebay I remember that was what it said on the postal site) but from my experience I always got it within a week. The reason to use media mail is it is much much cheaper to send books, cd's and movies that way.

[oohlala]

Jessica,
Like Brie said, it is on the honor system, so you are trusting that they will send your item. And it is pretty cool that you can track them. I think that the site and their system work, I was just turned off by the forum. And from what Brie said, it sounds like things are better. It is always worth a try! Please let us know how your experience goes. I didn't close my account, just donated all my books... got impatient and wanted them out.
AL