Online swap shops for unwanted goods
If our post about Planet Relief got us thinking about Why Don’t You? and kid’s TV in general, this BBC News story reminded us of the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.
For those of you who don’t remember Saturday mornings with Noël, Maggie, John and Cheggers, the hapless Keith would be dispatched to outside broadcasts in town parks across the country, trying to match up kids who wanted to swap toys. As often as not, it was raining.
It’s easy for the Swap Shop generation to succumb to misty-eyed nostalgia, but the idea of swapping various things is still going strong, particularly online. Here are a few sites that aim to match up people with time, skills or belongings to exchange.
Probably the best known community recycling site, Freecycle started four years ago in Tucson, Arizona, and has spread to 75 countries. Like all good ideas, this one is simple: anyone with a useful item they no longer need can offer it to their local Freecycle group. Anyone who wants it can have it for free, but they’ll generally need to collect it.
The group says that each day across the world it keeps more than 300 tons of perfectly good items out of landfill sites. As the name suggests, it’s free to use.
TeamUpHere.com
Say you’re happy getting stuck in to a bit of gardening, but you’re hopeless on a computer. Somewhere over the other side of town there may be an IT wizard with a jungle outside their back door. Wait, we think we see a way out of this!
TeamUpHere.com is a free site that lets people get together to exchange their skills. You don’t have to be a professional to offer a skill, but you need to be honest about your level of expertise. It’s up to both users to agree a fair trade, but the site suggests that an equal amount of time from each party “might suit everyone”.
SwapShop
No Cheggers, we’re afraid, but this SwapShop does a similar job for people with items small enough to be sent by post. Once you’ve registered, you tell it about all the items you’d like to swap, and it gives each a value in Swap Points. If another member contacts you to request one of your items, you stick it in the post. When it arrives with them, SwapShop credits you with the Swap Points you asked for.
Points don’t make prizes, but they can be exchanged for other users’ items. Using the site is free, but if you don’t have enough points for the Matt Bianco box set you can buy more for ?
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Originally posted 2007-09-11 01:02:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
