The model behind new startup Swaptree, which will launch later this summer, is to allow people to trade media - books, music, dvds and videogames - directly with other users. As Rafe Needleman notes, here are other services out there that offer this - lala.com for music and peerflix for dvds. But those sites are specific to music (Lala) or DVDs (peerflix), and both charge users a small fee per transaction.
Swaptree will be different. First of all, any media can be swapped for any other kind of media. So I can trade the book I just finished for a DVD, or whatever. And Swaptree isn’t charging transaction fees. The site will support itself from page views. Users are responsible for their own shipping charges, however.
Swaptree is making it as easy as possible to conduct trades. To trade an item, all you have to do is enter the UPC or ISBN code on the back of the media and Swaptree fills in the details. And once you find someone to trade with, Swaptree will allow you to print out postage and shipping information right on the site.
Swaptree presents a compelling case for trading on their site, too. They say all you have to do is enter the item you want to trade, and you’ll be presented with “thousands” of items you can receive in trade. Their algorithm will also set up trades with up to 4 people, increasing the likelihood that you’ll see something you like.
So all that’s great, but something doesn’t smell right to me at Swaptree. First of all, trying to make a living on pageviews and advertisements will be tough. Lala and Peerflix don’t seem to be generating enough page views to support a company on advertising. I can see how Swaptree could be much more popular than either of those sites, but it may not be enough. Mitigating this, however, is the fact that their customer base will be primed for high end advertising - these people will obviously be ready to click over to Amazon and buy something on the spot.
But that leads me to my second, greater concern. Entering in an item and being presented with thousands of swap choices sounds great. I’m sure I could find things that I’d like to trade. But just how is that demand curve for my item generated? It seems to me that at some point in the process, I’m going to be asked what I am willing to trade for that item (if no one does this, there’s no way to create a market). And if I have to decide what I want and wait for that item to come on the market (assuming, with a stretch, that the person will want what I have to offer), well, it’s probably easier to just sell it on eBay and pick up whatever it is I’m looking for while I’m there. So what I see happening is that lots of people may be willing to enter their stuff in for trades, I don’t think that many people will take the time to say what they want to trade it for.
Maybe this is just a long winded way of saying that money does serve quite a nice purpose in our society, and eBay seems to have perfected the swapping market using that long proven currency of trade.
Sign up for the Swaptree beta on their home page.
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I believe there is another service that allows the trading of any sort of media.
The site: http://www.barterbee.com
Barterbee is a great site, they use a points based system as the currency, its one of the best systems for trading I’ve seen out of these trading sites. I think you should do a review on it.
You can try it out basically for free (you are given 10 points and $1 shipping credit) by signing up at the diggnation url:
http://www.barterbee.com/diggnation
Hasn’t this biz model failed many times before? I’m not sure why Zunafish, Lala et al feel they can make it work this time round.
Getting money in exchange is certainly good. But the barter system helps you sell your ‘useless stuff’ to others, which might of great value to them.
I agree with Mike Arrington. I think Swaptree might work for newer items like ipods… But what about slightly older items that people aren’t interested in? There are so many items out there… What if my mom wanted to trade her old love novel from 1983? I highly doubt she’d find someone to swap with, so she would probably do better on eBay.
What is the value added by this service?
Barter can work, but to me, it seems that currency was “invented” (for lack of a better word), to give two negotiating parties more granularity.
“I’ll trade you 1 dvd of movie A for 1 book of story B”.
“Hmm, sounds almost good, but if we do 1 dvd of movie A plus 1 dvd of movie B, then I’ll do it.”
“No, that would be too much. How about 1 dvd of movie A plus book C for book B.”
“But I have no interest in book C.” etc.
Or, “I’ll give you five dollars for Movie A”.
“Almost good enough. How about 7 dollars”.
“OK, deal”.
To me, it sems easier to use money than to barter.
oh great, i can finally unload all my scratched and fucked up cd’s and dvd’s and get some new scratched and used shit and then fight via email….is it cool if i tear a few favorite pages outta the book too?
these sites are dumb…local swaps work much better, getting like 10 people together to trade and swap in person - people you KNOW.
Barterbee has the best model, IMHO. Not only can you trade any music, dvd, game, but they also provide shipping insurance through envelopes you can easily purchase through their site. Instead of trading directly with other users there is a point system. So I can trade off my new XBox 360 game for 40 points to one person and then use those 40 points to buy 4 DVDs from 4 separate people. In that sense barterbee isn’t a true “barter” service, but more of an ebay/netflix cross.
Just my $.02, but barterbee has been a diggnation sponsor for several weeks and I’m kinda shocked Mike A hasn’t heard of it.
I commend Michael for his research. He has great comments.
Here are my updated comments (can also be seen at http://sfenster.blogspot.com/2.....iness.html):
It is true that ebay is easier for negotiators, who want that fine granularity of price, but some people just don’t want to “negotiate”. They may just want to go on the web, type in the UPC of a game for which they’ve grown bored, and see what they can get for it.
They also say that they will give customers an easy way to print postage from their computers. It looks like that is an added value over ebay. Ebay just lets the seller print out a mailing label. Postage is up to the seller.
I agree with Seth, while bartering sounds great in theory, in practice I think it has less merit. It seems like it would work well for specific things like movies, since most movies have equal value, but as demonstrated the sites that offer that functionality aren’t making a killing (I also think people purchase most media to own it in a collection - if I just wanted to watch a movie a few times, I’d rent it).
I remember various companies that tried this in 90’s (web 1.0), and didn’t they all go under? What’s different this time?
>> So what I see happening is that lots of people may be willing to enter their stuff in for trades, I don’t think that many people will take the time to say what they want to trade it for.
Why not? On eBay you know what items you want to get rid of and what items you’re looking for. Why would this be any different anywhere else?
Surprised that http://www.sonicswap.com is not mentioned here. They have been around for a few years at least, and allow people to trade movies/music/etc. through mail. As far as I know, SonicSwap was the first service of that kind. They mainly aim at college kids, which is perhaps why they don’t get mentioned here.
Seems they’ll make money off supplies as well — i.e. they’ll take a cut on the postage they sell directly from their site. Could be wrong — just glanced at it.
(1) Dave (#7) is right. see craigslist as evidence.
(2) Don’t assume you have to have a business model. see craigslist as evidence.
(3) sonicswap was not the first such service. see craigslist as evidence. (mozo and others also preceded sonicswap)
The last line is the key. While everybody is messing arounf trying to be the next ebay and creating doubt for sure (check Ebay price lately), ebay is the one to watch going forward when this ends. Save your energy and buy ebay stock all you web 2.0ers
Only 7 years gone by… ;-0
http://www.internetnews.com/bu.....php/266331
I think SwitchDiscs.com should be mentioned here. They have been doing this same thing for a couple months now. I’ve been using it for the past month and have started to really like it. I’ve traded away some old dvds, cds and games and received some great titles in return…some of which were brand new still with original packaging (I guess some members are switching bad gifts or discs they already had). Anyways, I submitted this to TechCrunch and have yet to see them do a review but yet they review a similar site that hasn’t even launched. If you haven’t already I suggest you check out SwitchDiscs.com.
A couple of thoughts to add here:
* ‘What is different from these services vs. web 1.0 swap sites?’ - Well, Peerflix and Lala for example offer a distributed peer-to-peer trading model. At Peerflix, you simply list DVDs you have and the system will find someone who wants your merchandise. You list the DVDs you want and the system will find someone else who has the merchadise you want. It does not pair people in one-to-one or even one-to-many swaps, thereby dramatically increasing the number of matches across the network. Swaptree and other smaller sites are all trying to resurect the one-to-one (or one-to-four?) approach where you need to find a trading partner(s) right there and then to complete your transation. In my opinion, the infinite number of connections offered by a decentralized, fluid peer to peer trade is superior - and where the innovation is.
* ‘Why not use cash?’ - By all means, if the merchandise you want to trade is worth your time and effort to convert it to cash (and maybe convert it back into another piece of property later), do it. The barter system works well when the stuff you want to get rid of, or the stuff you want to get, is not worth that much, so that if you don’t get the maximum monetary value for your stuff, that’s OK. With DVDs, it’s all about watching a movie. There is no rocket science: you are done with a movie, you send it to someone else, you get a new-to-you movie in return. For $0.99. That’s simple, that’s cheap, and that’s why it works.
I just recently stopped using peerflix due to their terrible business practices. They only want members to ship the dvd disc and worst of all they want you to ship it wrapped in a piece of paper. There’s no way you can convince me that shipping a disc through the USPS is safe in just a piece of paper. I have the broken and damaged dvds to prove it thanks to peerflix. I’m not the only one jumping ship…just take a look at their new forum and the discussions going on there or the old “unofficial” forum at DVDTradeTalk.com.
Daniele - Shocking you like peerflix’s model better, since your are their Vice President of Marketing.
Tyler - yes, as you can see in the url and email on all my posts here, I am with Peerflix…I thought that was obvious. What is your association with swaptree?
Dave (#7),
Try this for me: go to ebay and enter “Spiderman 2 dvd” in the search field. Hmm, hundreds of hits with people trying to sell their dvd for a few bucks. Now enter “stephen king paperback”. Wow, look at that! Dozens and dozens of paperback books that people are trying to sell for cheap. Some are in perfect condition, some are worn but people are buying and selling them all the same.
Sure there will always be people who just buy new stuff from Amazon, etc. but there is a huge contingent out there that are interested in getting a second life out of disposable media. Having a site like Swaptree show you what books, games or DVDs you can get for that old copy of Christine you have sitting on the shelf seems pretty appealing to me.
I was an avid user of Switchouse back in its heyday. I traded books, CDs, and DVDs - it was a really wonderful service. And it was successful, for a while. Unfortunately, it was bought by Amazon.com, which proceeded to discontinue the service in 2002. I don’t think its Half.com-like offering (selling your used stuff) was ever particularly successful, but it was great for trading.
I do not understand this. There used to be bartering …oh… about 3000 years ago and it was replaced with some sort of currency because it was easier to trade currency for an item or service than it was to trade another item or service. Why are we reverting to bartering? I though eBay reaffirmed currency as the best way to trade online.
hmph.
samfind
http://samfind.com
>Why are we reverting to bartering? I though eBay reaffirmed currency as the best way to trade online.
more than anything it’s a question of perceived value.
Why do people sell their items on ebay instead of just taking into the local Half Priced Books (or equivalent)… well the obvious answer is that you’re going to get less than what the item is worth by going to a Brick and Morter. People still take their items to the local Half Priced Books/Gamestop/Movie Trading Company but only if they’re too impatient to sell their items on ebay.
this website is going one step further in increasing the resale value - now instead of getting 10% return at half priced books or 50% using ebay I can get 90% value by trading the item with someone directly. I’ve not lost anything in the transaction (minus the small fee associated with the website)
There are many great questions concerning this post. I’m a cofounder of a similar site http://www.lendmonkey.com and I’d like to share some of our answers.
Pete/James - This model failed by a number of dotcom companies we believe because it was prior to peer to peer trading. Most people had a ‘quality over quantity’ point of view due to the high cost of media. Post peer to peer, people expect to have access to a much greater supply of media for a low cost. We’re putting these people in touch with each other so they can save time downloading and organizing files, but still have the benefits of peer to peer.
Phil - We are community based and allow people to make friends with other people who like the same type of media - not ‘useless stuff.’ Several of the new trading sites are System-based which is easy for people to put ‘useless stuff’ up for trade.
Seth - Why barter? Bartering cuts the middle man as much as possible for commodity type products like media. A movies value is determined by having a person that wants the film. Any movie has the chance to have the same value as any other movie when niche markets are served. Think of eBay: purchasing a film on eBay has a small dollar price, plus a fairly large shipping price (Up to $8 when we started lendmonkey!) for a single dvd. We provide mailers to send the dvd case at wholesale and do not upcharge on shipping costs, so typical shipping is $1.80 for a dvd.
Dave - If you’re interested in local swaps, then you’ll like lendmonkey Places.
SlashClick - SconicSwap wasn’t the first. An early dotcom swap site that used a point system for bartering that failed was called MrSwap.
We believe in a community rather than an algorithm, and we believe after trials that a small charge per trade will save our members time and result in a better trading community than an ad supported site. We would rather have a small, reliable community of traders; than a huge community of people with no committment to each other. We allow swapping of books, music, movies and games and we’re open to a global marketplace (though our pages are not localized yet). If you’re interested in a trading site which is similar to Swaptree but allows you to trade with your neighbors, coworkers, and friends rather than having to mail everything; then please check us out.
[bartering vs. using currency is] more than anything it’s a question of perceived value.
i don’t know what ‘perceived value’ is, but i’ve tried dumping/trading used books i’ve read for several years now, and have rarely been successful. i once used that service where you put some sticker on the book and then leave it someplace pseudo-public, like a coffeeshop or something, but that kinda sucked for several reason.
i tried to start, via craigs, a bartering book ring - where all us pseudo-liberal types would each by the latest hate-Bush book and then all swap in a couple of weeks. to me, it was about saving money, but is was at least as much about building community - real community, with a political backdrop. the book ring never worked.
maybe swaptree will eventually go live.
The only bad thing as a new member to Swaptree that I see and thats so far is that you can only do so many trades until they confirm you have shipped your item…this is obviously to keep you searching for ahwile after and waiting for others to comment before you are allowed to make more trades…also it made sense to me that if I put a higher quality item on there, perhaps a brand new book which I ordered two of at one time without knowing, then I thought it would up the value of the item I would receive in trade…obviously WRONG as someone offered me something of way less value and I declined with a warning to let me know that I shouldn’t do this as it would restrict future trades…of course you must always try inm order to learn and I learned that you don’t put items of value to you on there. Things you are ready to throw away is much better…more fair…oh well we live and learn..otherwise its nice to trade a few things and get a new book but I also think ebay is better.