The Bartering System In Full Effect - TheSwapShop.net Review

I was contacted the other day by Leigh Brown of TheSwapShop.net asking for a review of his new startup. I took a quick peek at the site, thought it was a novel idea (and a clever use of Wordpress which I'll explain) and the claim that the proceeds would go to charity, I decided to go ahead and write up this free review.

The idea behind TheSwapShop.net is quite simple. Swapping , as defined by Wikipedia: Swapping is the increasingly prevalent informal bartering system in which participants in Internet communities trade items of comparable value on a trust basis. So, that's the idea behind TheSwapShop.net in a nutshell as I see it. You simply trade skills with others.

How Leigh Describes TheSwapShop.net

The basic idea of my site is to help all types of people as we go through this credit crunch. The Swap Shop is an open forum for people to swap skills with each other. The idea is that instead of paying for the small odd jobs, people post a 'Swap Request' about the job needed doing, and then offer their skills in payment. In theory a win-win situation!

Local And Global

A great thing about this service is that in some situations the service provider you are swapping with can be anywhere in the world. The How It Works page discusses a scenario that could only work for people in the same area. But this could easily benefit people wanting to swap digital services for example. Perhaps... "I'll setup a Wordpress blog for you in exchange for a dozen articles written." or "I'll create the graphics for your blog if you install my blog with all of the plugins." The ideas are endless.

Spammers Get No Love Here

When this site was originally launched, submitting a "swap" was free. Spammers took advantage (of course) and Leigh was forced to change the strategy. It now costs $1 to submit a "swap". Not a bad price at all. Your swap will only be live for 30 days though at which time it comes down. I feel that, while the site is new at least, there should be some grace time...maybe allow it to be live for 90 days. 30 seems too short while the traffic is still low. If spammers do decide to take the gamble and pay the $1, there posts will be removed and no refund will be given.

The posts are organized into categories. So, a person with a certain skill set would browse the categories where their skills lie, at which time they could make contact with the person who made the post. Contact is done through a web form so your email address will not be accessible by spammers.

Besides the $1 posting fees, Google AdSense is used for monetization of the site.

Proceeds go to Charity

You have to love it when charitable works are being done and especially if you can be part of it. It wasn't a fact that was focused on heavily on the site, I believe I read it in the FAQ's, but I felt that it was definitely worth mentioning. I would have liked to have seen which charity will be benefiting from the money earned from the site, but I realize it is such a new development that the charity may not have yet been decided on. In this skeptical world, the mention of the charity name when decided on, will help make the claim more believable.

Abuse Potential

As of this writing there are currently 2 posts on TheSwapShop.net. There's a test post which should be removed and one asking for volunteers to be interviewed for a podcast. That post, to me at least, defeats the purpose of what the site is meant for. Again, just my opinion, although the post technically abides by the loose "rules", I think it is still a little one sided. The person getting the interview is getting great content for a podcast and what is he/she giving in return? A mention of the interviewee's web site! If I was the moderator that post would have been deleted right off the bat. If that is a valid post then you could potentially announce your blog contests on there too. Say: "You write a post about my blog contest and you get the chance to win some prizes. But, your immediate reward, i.e. "the swap", I'll let you submit a comment on my blog linking to your blog post about the contest, giving you exposure to your blog!" What a deal eh? (sarcasm) I would tighten the reigns a little bit to avoid that sort of crap. The podcast post is spam in not-so-good disguise in my opinion.

Trust System

There really is no easy way to enforce that people live up to their end of the bargain and TheSwapShop.net claims no liability in this regard and who could blame them really? You are reminded on the site though that your are entering into a contractual agreement when entering into a "swap" arrangement. Perhaps there should be a way that registered individuals could have their own page that others can post comments on (sort of like a feedback system)...that is, of course, assuming they want to use the system for more than one swap.

Clever Use of Wordpress

It may not be obvious at first glance but TheSwapShop.net was developed using Wordpress as a Content Management System. This is just one example of the potential of Wordpress as something more than a "blogging" environment. And going back to the fact that a charity is benefiting from this venture... I run pretty much everything I do online by my girlfriend. I work from home and she's the one that is around the most. I told her about the TheSwapShop.net and that the proceeds go to charity. She assumed immediately that a person "must be rich" or else "why would they go through the expense to create this site". But let me remind you, the cost of hosting doesn't have to be a lot. Remember that you could host unlimited web sites with GoDaddy for one small monthly fee. I believe that everyone in the "make money online" field should have a site that benefits a charity in their collection of sites. And with the hosting at GoDaddy allowing unlimited sites, and the power and flexibility of Wordpress, you can lower the risks of time and money. Do something good for a charity that you believe in. Even take part in sites that help out charities. As with TheSwapShop.net, you are helping a charity and potentially finding the right person to swap skills with. That could very well be your missing piece to the "make money online" puzzle. Check out the Swap Shop now .

Suggestions

I realize this post has gotten to be a little long winded but I wanted to be thorough. I'll close out with a couple of quick suggestions. First, I want to say that I used to run a web site for my local city and I thought about adding a swapping system similar to TheSwapShop into the site. "Keeping things simple at first" should have been my motto and I may have actually followed through with the creation of it! Anyway, here are some features that I considered for my site, that may bode well for The Swap Shop later down the road.

Instead of the 'Here's what I need done and here's what I'd be willing to do for you' system, a more efficient system, albeit not as simple, could be:

A person creates a profile. Then they create one or more swap requests. They choose from a broad list of categories the things that they are willing/capable to do. They then choose a category for what it is they need done. They then describe in detail what it is they need done.

With the data collected (as described above), better matching capabilities could be put in place. Also, this could potentially limit the abuse as it could possibly enforce a "win-win". With the current way, a person has to accept what it is the other person is offering even though they may not have been necessarily in need of it. It's almost like buying a product only because you have the coupon for it.

Having a profile could also allow the user to further define his skill sets and as mentioned above it could give a way to provide feedback.

Also, I would allow swaps of physical goods too. Either a physical good for a service or a physical good for a physical good. I just recently "paid" someone a $300 Power Supply that I won in a contest for a program to be written

A typical blog section might be a good idea too. Discuss the "credit crunch" and benefits of using the site and some more scenario suggestions perhaps.

All suggestions aside, if the site is really just designed for quick one time transactions, it is already setup perfectly for that.

Best of luck with the site Leigh!

To my readers: I know from some emails that I get from some of you that you are in need of service swapping in order to reach your goals. This is your chance. Head over to TheSwapShop.net now.

Leigh, please use the comments section to clarify anything that I may have misunderstood regarding The Swap Shop.