Swap Site Updates – Profile Additions
First, a quick thank you to everyone for the feedback on the last round of swap site updates. We’ve kept the personal notes on whether or not you want to swap again with someone, but that information is now just private for you to view – not reflected on that person’s swap profile.
Now for some new updates:
In your profile edit settings, you can now indicate if you will always provide tracking with swaps, and/or if you will always ship in 3-4 business days.
When you check those settings, your profile will then indicate it on all swap listings:
This is a completely optional step. Please only use it if you are sure you can meet the requirements. (You can check one or the other, or both). The goal of this feature is to continue to add as much information as we can to the swap site to help you make great swap decisions. For example, if you only want to do swaps with tracking provided, this should help you identify your potential fellow swappers easily.
Lastly, when you view a swap proposal with someone, now you’ll see this message if you follow items that that swapper has listed:
Again, hopefully that makes things easier and gets you more completed swaps!
Let me know if you have any questions, and as always please the suggestions and feedback coming! 🙂
Written by Liz Cadman
Hi Liz,
Ive just been checking out the new features on the swap site- theres so many great new ones to explore 🙂
I noticed on the “users following my listings” feature I have 45 pages of followers, but of that list the same people are listed over and over again- there’s about 15-20 people who are listed again with the same exact items on at least 15 pages. so I’m not sure if its suppose to show a duplicate post like that over and over again? But its a nice feature, I like seeing that one user might be following 10 items I have listed so it makes finding someone to do a large multiple swap easier.
I’m also having a issue with the new forum discussion section. I joined and confirmed the link in my email, but I still get a error message saying I don’t have permission to view the site. Any help with this is much appreciated.
Thanks so much!!
Hey Liz, I have a question about site notifications. I used to get notifications in my email when people were interested in my stuff or commented. I now receive nothing. How do I get that back?
Check your junk mail. Mine go in there most of the time.
I need help with getting tracking without going to the post office. Is there a way to get the basic tracking upgrade on usps.com? Someone please help! I can’t ever get to the post office but I’m happy to add tracking if I can figure it out! Thank you!!
Use PayPal.com/shipping. You can pay for and print labels from home, for anything under 13oz, and leave it in your mailbox for the postal carrier. Tracking is automatically included.
Thank you. But when I go to paypal.com/shipping and sign in, it just takes me to my paypal page and I don’t see any general shipping icons or options to get started. I looked in all logical pull downs and I don’t find anything. Am I crazy?
No, you’re not crazy at all – they hide it! The direct link is: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now. Hope that helps!
Thank you! What the heck! Ha!
Thanks for all the updates to the swap site, Liz! I shouldn’t complain at all bc I’ve had very good luck, response & everyone has been so nice on the site…the one problem I do have is sometimes ppl don’t check it often, even after initial conversation have occurred. Thank goodness there’s an automatic expiration of swaps that have been initiated, but it would be nice if there was a box to check or something indicating “checks site regularly”, similar to being on vacation. Sometimes I can’t proceed with other swaps bc I’m waiting for someone to get back to me for days. Ok. I’ll stop banging on my highchair….
Hi Liz,
Is there anyway (Pleaseeeeee!) that we can get KnitCrate and possibly yarn box added? I discovered KnitCrate through your site so it would make sense it be in the swaps.
Is there anything I can do to help make this happen?
I’ve asked before but no reply……..thank you!
My most-wanted option would be the option when you propose a swap to pick items you would swap back for it. I never know what anyone would be willing to give me when they propose a swap, and I usually have something in mind when I ask for something else. This wouldn’t be a requirement, and the person you requested from could immediately counter swap proposal, but it would make swaps so much easier I feel like.
I sometimes wonder about that, too. Someone recently requested 2 or 3 items from me, and she only had 1 thing I was following. It was worth a bit more than the items that she had requested, but I thought that since she knew I was following it, she would know that would be what I would request. Well she seemed shocked that I picked that item and she canceled the swap. Why didn’t she just say, “I know you follow this item, but please choose something else from my board.”
I’m of the mindset that whenever you give someone a reason Why Not it devolves into a one-sided debate about Why with bonus “I have other stuff not listed” or “Check out my Pinterest board”. There are plenty of reasons why members might not want to swap with someone but I doubt the other members will appreciate hearing some of them.
Telling someone I don’t want to swap with them because of X can impact my future trades because someday they might have an item I really want and am willing to put up with X to get. Giving a banal “Nothing I’m looking for right now. Maybe in the future :)” despite what the real reason is seems to be an unnecessary social lubricant.
How about searching for people in your area or maybe in your state. That way we can swap with lower shipping rates. I know once you find something you like you can sort the swappers by who lives closest but I just want to see all listing and swappers in my area or at least state.
When you’re looking at an item, under the “Currently Available” line, there is an option to sort by closest to you.
While we’re on the subject of swapping – I keep seeing a message, ‘Helen has over 10 items in progress so she must ship first’.
I never have 10 swaps on the go, even counting items I’m waiting to receive.
I’m currently in the awkward position of swapping with new members who have little or no feedback, yet I must ship first, even though I have hundreds of swaps under my belt and 100% good feedback.
I doubt anything can be done about this, I’m just rather wary, having been swaplifted recently.
Do you have a bunch of swaps requested from you that you haven’t accepted? I can’t remember but I think these are counted. Maybe check that.
I’ll go through and deal with any unanswered requests and see if that helps. Thanks for the suggestion!
Also check for feedback you need to leave. I am almost positive this counts as open swaps. Good luck!
I’m thinking there might be a glitch on your account. As soon as you enter tracking info, the number of swaps in progress goes down. Needing to leave feedback does not make it show as a swap in progress, nor does having open requests. It becomes a swap in progress once both sides have requested something, whether the swap has been accepted yet or not, and it is no longer considered a swap in progress as soon as you enter tracking info, even though, to me, it is still in progress because you are waiting for your items and need to leave feedback.
Liz you are fantastic! Thanks for taking into consideration our feedback and changing it.
Is there any chance of allowing us to exceed however many characters we have in the member profile? Or at least another place to write a longer explanation? For example, I don’t want to check the 3-4 days thing because I’ve been having huge problems with my packages not getting picked up /mail not getting delivered over the pas year, and rarely have time to go to the PO during its limited hours, so I don’t want to make that guarantee but would like to explain why. (Yeah, I’m flummoxed as to how I can live in a major city and the mail carriers can apparently just decide not to deliver or pick up mail – for some reason they don’t assign routes here, so it’s someone new every day and a total nightmare.) Also, just so we can say more stuff about what we want =)
I have a request: when we decline a swap proposal, can there be a pull down “Reason” box? That way we don’t need to put in a separate message to explain that we just don’t see anything we want right now, or that we only want followed items for that particular item, or that there is a swap pending on it already?
Also (OK, it’s two requests, not one!): this has been suggested before but I always think about it. When we are looking at the availability of an item, can the listings of the swappers show if they have other things we’re following too? I love that it shows whether they are following things of ours, but it would save so much time to know whose item to request if we could see they have other stuff we want as well. Multiswap FTW!
Yes, please!! This is a great idea. I always feel rude if I don’t message the person to explain why I declined.
These are great suggestions!
I think this is great, but I wish there was a disclaimer for tracking for flat items (e.g. those tattoos). Perhaps, though, the disclaimer can go on the item itself (e.g. “if shipped alone, this will be shipped by regular mail and will not have tracking”).
Nana, just a quick response to the flat item thing. I sell on eBay and we have to provide tracking. If an item is flat I put a single packing peanut or a wad of bubble wrap in the envelope to make the thickness eligible for first class parcel, even in an envelope, that tracking is included. It will be more than the cost of a stamp but not a huge amount more for the peace of mind of having tracking.
I really need to learn how to do this! I have tons of Items from Tons of Boxes! :/
Love this Liz!! You guys are awesome! Will be sending more suggestions soon!
These are awesome additions – thank you so much! 😀
– What would be a great option to see is: If the swapper ship internationally/Canada/USA / Apo addresses or not. – Canadian shipping from the USA can be expensive, APO addresses require a seperate form to be filled out, and can only be tracked in the USA ( as far as I know )
I concur. It seems to me that tracking from the US to Canada is pointless … often it doesn’t work for me so I don’t see why someone in the US should have to pay extra for it.
I shipped to Canada once, and found out that the customs form you have to fill out can be used to track the package, so you don’t have to add tracking anyway. The number tracked all the way from me to delivery using usps tracking: LC830266499US is the number if you want to look at it. Of course, most packages come with tracking now anyway, but I have had a package that the tracking did not work, but the customs number did.
So glad you used business days for the shipping length! I’m usually pretty quick during the week, but on the weekends I can be a slowpoke.
Thank you so much for having the swap site, and all the work you do on this website, to continually improve the FUN! of seeing whats new in the world of boxes, and seeing whats new in swap land 🙂 — As far as tracking …. not sure if everyone is aware that tracking is now included with regular first class mail, last month it was an extra $1.10. – I can understand international not having tracking, or someone who only uses stamps, yet stamps can only be on envelopes and very light weight packages. Yet I can’t understand why someone would not ad tracking on any other package, since it is now included, they would just have to look at their receipt and ad the # to the swap.
Yeah- that was an awesome discovery at the post office recently! I do occasionally ship without tracking, if I’m just sending a card or 2 from my Happy Mail I will put them in a sturdy envelope with stamps, but that’s really it; basically if you’re going to the post office, tracking is a given with their inclusion of it now. 🙂
It may be helpful to add an item field to note which month/year the item came in a box. I’m starting to see beauty samples from last year or that say June in comments, but I’m pretty sure it is June 2014! If people aren’t filling out expiration dates since many are not available, this could also be helpful as a guide. Thanks for all your work to make this site possible!!!
I agree! I also see lots of expired coupons/ gift cards etc. It would be awesome if the site automatically removed any listings past their expiration date (with an automatic notice to the lister that the item was no longer acceptable for swap).
How do you change the profile picture?
Great addition Liz! Thanks