Last week’s blog post introduced Rachel Botsman’s theory “The Collaborative Consumption”. On eCycle’s Facebook page, we offered the lecture on video.
The latter part of the Collaborative Consumption lecture offers various concrete methods for living comfortably within the proposed perimeter. Both Ms. Botsman’s thorough research and the theory itself has convinced us to explore some of the available trade/barter sites in our own effort to live more responsibly on the planet.
Each US household has, on average, 450 media items, worth over $7,400. Instead of spending more money to own more possessions, it seems a wise idea to trade or barter with others, in order to redistribute the wealth of possessions, thus allowing each household to gain more new experiences without expending fiscal or environmental resources.
To help you better understand and experience the barter/trade system, we did some research ourselves, after choosing 2 different sites: Swap and Thredup.
Swap allows its members to swap books, CD’s, movies, and videogames with guaranteed success and over 3 million items available for swapping. Once you determine an item which you’d like to swap, you log on to Swap and list that item. They require a barcode for each item in order to correctly identify the item, and offer help finding your item’s particular code. You are also directed to list your wanted item, if applicable. The site’s algorithm creates trades with other swappers, including swappers who are looking to swap exactly what you want in return.
The site offers a swap guarantee similar to Paypal’s payment guarantee; if they can’t help you resolve your swap issue, they will refund you so that you can purchase your desired swap item. In addition, swappers and swappees rate each other, similar to eBay’s seller and buyer system.
The first swap is free; thereafter, each swap is charged a .50 or 1.00 transaction fee (dependent upon the monetary value of the item swapped) with a $10 monthly fee cap.
Thredup members are parents with young children, trying to keep their growing children clothed without breaking the bank. With claims that each member’s family has saved about $570 per year on children’s clothing, this site is worth investigating if you have young children.
Once a member joins the site, Thredup sends the member free shipping boxes. The member then gathers several gently worn items of children’s clothing and logs onto the site to “build a box” using an online widget which helps with listing and sorting the clothing, by brand, size, and color.
When another member picks your box, you print out a shipping label from the site, attach it to your free box, and the site will help you schedule a free USPS pick up. There is no out-going shipping cost to you.
When you pick a box for yourself, you pay a $5 transaction fee, plus shipping costs. Shipping costs are actual and exact USPS shipping costs, with no hidden fees.
We hope you will experiment with some bartering of your own, and let us know how it goes. Join us next week for more links to online swapping sites!
There’s a barter site that’s fairly new to the game but growing quickly – http://tradeomics.com. You can add any items you want to your profile for free and then negotiate trades directly with other members. Have an old or extra iPhone sitting around? Go find a member who needs it and trade for 3 of their video games (or more!). Bartering is easy and you don’t pay anything until you complete a trade. Site credits are purchased and used as the currency.