Swap Groups – Would You Use Them?

Oh! Two other things: 1. We need a category in fashion for SHOES! 2. And for shoes and clothes, agree, listing size should be mandatory and searchable. Yay! Thanks Liz!

Not interested in groups. I would LOVE to see who is following my items so I could see what they have. Thanks Liz!

No on closed forums. I’ve had some very bad experiences as a new member trying to successfully get enough reviews established. Will turn into longtime members sectioned off and newbies (with smaller selection) left out swapping with each other.

Suggestion on clothing: Have the size visible right on the main page. Right now, you see an item of clothing, but have to click in and search around to find your size. It might be nice if the clothing option on the main search menu was broken into Clothing XS… Clothing XXL or whatever, so you can quickly navigate to things that will fit.

I don’t like the groups idea either. I would like an area for just general discussion, sharing of excitement, anticipation, general opinions on boxes. secret Santa would probably be popular!

Since people are offering suggestions, I wanted to point out that I never get emails from this site anymore. It was a lot easier when I knew if someone had commented on a swap (sometimes I don’t notice for days) and knowing right away that someone had cancelled the swap. Now I have to click on all the recent swaps to make sure that I haven’t missed anything.

As a newer swapper this would make it impossible to even get a chance. I really appreciate those who swapped with me initially but I also didn’t always do fair swaps just so I could build a rating. I Wish there was a way to find out why other swappers aren’t responding. I’ve got several counter swaps sitting for days wondering why. So it would be great to have a 5 question review like ebay where it asks communication, shipment time, packaging, ect.
I also am getting burned by an experienced swapper. It’s been 3 weeks plus waiting for my item and she still won’t respond or add tracking. She also has relisted the item I sent her. So long story short, I’d love to rate her fairly.

This seems very unfair! What, are the newbies bothering the established traders? The whole thing seems “cliquey” to me. Thought high school was over.

I think it sounds good

Maybe because I’m new, but that seems really unfair.
one thing I’d like is to be able to see if there is already a trade in work on an item, so I don’t waste my time responding to a trade request by requesting a pending item.

Invite only groups- No, I wouldn’t want or use.
Some of the other ideas listed above (like private notes) -Yes, I’d use.

Personally, all I seem to get in these boxes is a bunch of junk. I can’t imagine anyone else would want it either. I would be thrilled to buy from someone their unwanted items. Some of them I have been able to find on ebay, but not all. I thought the passport/airline ticket wallet that showed up a couple weeks ago was great, but have not been able to find a similar one for a decent price and quality.

This doesn’t sound like something I would use. I agree with others that this feels limiting, and I tend to trust other swappers and will swap with swappers who have 100% ratings without concern. I would love a way to beef up the swapping matchmaking system, as someone else recommended. Currently I noticed it only offers a limited number of swap options, rather than giving you all of the folks who have matching items and are also interested in your items. A more extensive matching system would be great.

Not interested in swap groups–too cliquey.

I am not particularly interested in a group swap. Too cliquey.
I read over the comments and I would like to second the suggestion that there is a way we can see a list of people who are following things we list, maybe tied to our listings page. That would be a great advantage if we could connect to their listings. I also really like the blind review idea someone posted, where neither side can see the review of the other until their own review has been posted. I have never needed to leave a negative review, but it makes me wonder when someone gets the item I sent them a week before I get mine and they still haven’t reviewed me. They wait until I post my review before they post theirs, which tells me they aren’t reviewing the experience, but reviewing my review!!
And I love your idea of the after review question about if we would like to swap again and having a reminder of how we marked them if we try to swap again, and also the percentage of all swappers who said yes. I can see that really being useful.
Lastly, I second the need to update the swap requested date if you do that more than once.

I wouldn’t use the swap groups either but it is an interesting idea.

Regarding other ideas… A way to coordinate local meetups to swap in person would be really handy. I live in So. Cal and I know there have to be a bunch of people right around me. Could be a great way to meet people with common interests and save on shipping!

Finally, since you asked… 🙂 I wish there was a way to easily see who is following a particular item. For example, if I look up an item, there could be a tab or link to show me who is tracking that item. That way if I wanted to I could look at what those people following the item have available to swap and request a swap with them. Sort of like the swap matchmaker (which is great! btw) but a little different. This feature could be handy because sometimes I have an item listed that I believe people are probably tracking and it is quite possible I would be willing to swap them for something on their list if I knew about them. Swap matchmaker doesn’t find this match because there are lots of things I would be willing to swap for but I am not currently following because I don’t even know about them yet or because there are just too many options to follow everything I am interested in.

Thanks so much! (And thanks again for adding the time to the comments.) Love it. 🙂

I wouldn’t use it. I haven’t had any bad experiences yet, but I don’t like the idea of exclusivity that groups would create. I’ve done over 100 swaps, but I sometimes choose to swap with someone new if it’s an item several people have. I had such a hard time getting swaps when I was new and I’d hate for it to get harder for those just joining the board! Yes, there are folks I swap with again and again, but I can follow them. 🙂

I’m not sure about swap groups but I love the secret santa option!

I wouldn’t personally use it. I’m in enough groups on Facebook for swapping, I like the current format of MSA swaps. I do love that you’re always looking for new ideas though!! 😀

Set up secret santa anyway and let us know about it!! 🙂

Liz: — Idea: It would be fun if we could randomly could get a secret santa, and include a few non box items in the box, so the box would be a surprise. Maybe there could be a secret santa sign up list =)

Sounds like fun! I really like the secret santa idea. – I’m trying to swap as much as I can before the end of year. Jan 1, I want to donate all the items I have left, and start the new year fresh. The group would also be great, when someone has multiple swaps with the same person, and they want to put them in one box, and wait till the next time they ship and ship all the items together. I prefer larger item swaps. Shipping can be pricey I spent $150 in shipping last month, most of the items where one or 2 items. Then 1 week later, I did another swap with the same person. It would be so much easier and cheaper to have a box going for 2 weeks or a month, and that is where I think the swap group would be great. I could let the people in the group know about new updates, and ask if they want me to put anything in their box.

I don’t know that I’d like or would use that feature. As far as suggestions I had a few.
1. I’d love to be able to leave notes about a swapper. These would be notes available only to myself. I’d be able to just jot down notes about the swapper such as if they were great traders, if they are smokers (I’ve done a few swaps where while it was a good swap, the the cigarette smell is just overwhelming and I’d prefer to not swap with them again), slow to ship or just someone I’d rather not deal with again. There are so many people on the site now that it’s hard to keep everyone straight. That way next time if their profile comes up in a possible trade, the notes would be available to me to easily click on and see 2. I wish there was a way to block someone, I’m sure lots of us have dealt with someone that makes the same request over and over again (it gets a tad irritating). 3. Please make the feedback blind so that the traders do not see what the other person says until both individuals have submitted their feedback. I’ve heard from so many people that have said that when they’ve left honest negative feedback, the other individual turns around and retaliates by then leaving negative feedback against them. Often they lie just to get back at the trader. This screws up the feedback system and makes people hesitant and scared to leave the truth when they know that there is a good chance that they’ll receive a negative rating in retaliation for just being honest. 4 When someone requests a trade there is the feature that allows you to click the button and it shows all of the items they have from your follow list. I love this feature and I wish it would also be available when we are requesting a trade. It’d be great to have the option of not going through all of the traders items. It’s be so convenient to be able to immediately see what items they have available that you follow so that you could just select those items instead of scrolling through all of their listings. 5. It’s be so great if the search function worked for more than one word. Thanks for everything!

I love the forum/posting board idea – I go through the comments of any box that sounds interesting to get an idea what other people think or thought of the box before ordering – with this I could just ask a question about the box and find out what others think. Maybe the forum could be split up into a posting board of threads for popular boxes such as Popsugar, and Birchbox so you could easily talk about specific boxes in one place, and other general threads too maybe by category.

I would love to see some sort of feedback or comment area for popular items in the swap section, i.e. inside the window when you click on the item. There are times when I don’t know much about an item on swap and I will usually Google it to find out if it is something I would like or be able to use – I’m sure if I had some honest opinions on the item from other subscribers it would help me decide to go for it or not.

I wouldn’t use it but it would be nice to have some sort of a way to ask questions
I don’t like seeing used makeup at all – too many germs
There is way too much caught up in “dollar value” as no one paid dollar value for very few things here. The only thing I can see would be if someone bought an item from a boutique at the $ value.

I wouldn’t use this – I’ve had luck with the general group and wouldn’t need to narrow down the audience. I’ve enjoyed swaps as-is so far!