ChanceXchange

ChanceXchange is a clever new website that lets people swap things they don't want. Simple as that really: you sign up and list the things (books, CDs, games) you have but no longer need, and for each item you send to another member get a credit that you can spend on an item on the site you'd rather have. I've already used it a few times to give away books I'd read and didn't plan to read again, and today received my first item in return.

There's a number of advantages over trying to sell your unwanted stuff on eBay, perhaps the main one being the lack of any financial element or, therefore, a cut to PayPal. The simplicity of the system is also, perhaps, its weak spot - since there's (currently) no way of reflecting the different values of items it would be possible to swap items of low monetary value for higher-valued items and then sell the latter elsewhere, pocketing the difference. That said, it's not obvious how anyone would lose out from some hypothetical subset of the site's users taking such an approach - people are swapping things precisely because they are explicitly willing to leave their monetary value on the table in return for the chance to acquire something they'd prefer.

It's a neat niche. eBay works just fine if you want to swap things for cash. But ultimately you're going to spend that cash on buying more things, so if what you were going to buy is already available for swaps why not simply cut out the middleman?

Comments

[Ron Davison]

Perhaps the real service is that it facilitates clutter reduction. Just think - give up five items and get one.

There is one thing I don't get, though. If everyone is sending out multiple items in order to get back one, where do the extras go? What is my simple mind missing and does it have anything to do with the conversion from metric to English measures?

[Seamus]

Hi Ron - you get one item back (or a credit to the value of one item back) for each item you send out. It's a one for one swap. Not sure how you got the impression that people send out multiple things to get one back.

[Paul Sweeney]

I think there have been a few attempts at "exchange/barter" type networks before. I think that psychologically, people like the idea of "money" as a an absolute in the equation. Where I can see this really really working is linked to a social networking tool, or tools, and leveraging their nascent reputation systems to in aggregate go after eBay... I am sure someone like Umair at BubbleGen/EdgeGen would have a better take on that than me.

[booklover]

I like the idea of "a 'exchange/barter' type network" where items I don't need/want/use can be swapped for something I will use with no money involved, however, I've tried several of the previous sites (which no longer exist). Based on my previous experiences, I immediately find a flaw in this one: where are the points you "earn" from sending out your items coming from? If the only way to gain points is by giving away items, who was given "free or non-earned" points to "buy" items with so there would be points in the system?