Swaptree Saves Trees, Money and Time

With the state of the economy these days, everyone is looking for bargains, or denying themselves products that they normally would buy. If this description fits you, let me introduce you to Swaptree.com, where you can acquire books, movies, music and games for… wait for it…. free.

Well, you will have to pay for postage, but with the USPS’s media rate, that typically doesn’t amount to much.

Here’s how it works:

If you’ve got an item you want to trade, you simply create a free account at Swaptree.com, then create your Have List, by inputting the details on your item – it’s title, and the UPC or ISBN number. (You can check out the site’s FAQ to find out what those are and where to find them on your item.) Of course, you can’t offer free online books or read books online free there, and while free audio books are not yet available as part of their system, they are working on it.

Once you’ve created your Have List, you then create your Want List. To do this, you simply input the name of the item you’re looking for in the Search Box at the top of any screen. The items matching your search will appear, and you click on that item to add it to your Want List. (Just because it appears as part of a search does not mean that it is currently available for trade.)

Once Swaptree.com has your Have List and your Want List, it’s powerful algorithms go to work, and if anything on your Have and Want List matches, the Get Now button lights up and you perform the trade. If nothing’s available, the algorithm stays active, of course, and whenever anyone else enters something on their Have List that you have on your Want List, you are contacted via email.

The system is currently set up to allow trading of books, DVDs (no VHS), music CDs and a variety of games. There’s no free online books, though, so Swaptree.com is not the place to come to read books online free. And although they do not yet offer free audio books for trade, they will be adding that capability to their system shortly.

Last time I checked, they had 78012 books, 14965 music, 5190 DVDs and 1111 video games available for trade.

So if you’ve got shelves of books you never intend to read again, music you’re not going to listen to, DVDs you’re not going to watch, or video games you’re never going to play, don’t despair. Don’t give them away for nothing. Trade them for some items that you do want…. However briefly….and then trade that item for something new as well!