Trade Books, CDs, DVDs and Video Games on Swaptree

There's a new way to get rid of your old books, music, movies and video games. It's a website called Swaptree. Instead of trying to sell your items on eBay or Amazon, and finding them lost in an ocean of similar items, you key them in by ISBN number or UPC and their computer automatically matches you with people that have items you want. What's really cool is that you don't have to swap like items. Unlike Paperbackswap, Bookmooch, Bookins, or Lala, you can swap a book for a movie, and a CD for a DVD. They've come up with a computer program that can create 3-way and 4-way swaps, which greatly expands the list of items available to you.

How does Swaptree work? Well, just load in the books, CDs, DVDs and video games that you want to swap. You key in the UPC or ISBN number (near the barcode on the back) from your item plus a condition and description if desired, and you're swapping! You'll be presented with a list of items available to you. If you don't want any of those items, you can create a want list, and the computer will try to match your wants to someone else's haves as soon as possible.

What does Swaptree cost? Just the postage to ship out your items. You can choose to use your own postage or print it out right from Swaptree. If you do, they charge your credit card, but there is no markup, so most items cost less than $2.50 to ship. The only extra cost is a $1 charge per month for anyone who uses his or her prepaid postage printing at all in a given month. No extra charges if you always use your own stamps. There are no membership fees, monthly fees, per item fees, or per trade fees. You can view the geographic location of potential trading partners, so that if there is one in your city, you can arrange a trade for no postage cost at all!

The beauty of the prepaid postage is that you can put it in your mailbox with the flag up for your postal carrier, or you can drop your packages into any US Mailbox. There have been a lot of new restrictions imposed on packages sent through the mail with stamps, but a Swaptree package with prepaid postage can be any weight or size and still dropped in a mailbox. No waiting in line at the Post Office!