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.

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.

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)

hmph.

samfind
http://samfind.com

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.

* ‘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.