Stagnancy and Online Bartering Sites

I've reached a stand-still in the bartering process. You may have noted a lack of entries of late; this is due to a severe lack of trades. My swap sequence has gained enough value that it is harder to find someone who can offer something of worth.

In an effort to correct this stagnancy, I have opted to enter my offer into online trading sites. This will spread awareness of my wine, decanter, and glasses to a larger populous, and to one which actively trades, thereby increasing my chances to make the next trade.

I do not use sites which charge for membership, for each trade, or anything else. To me, this defeats the purpose of bartering. It also enters the gray area of the rules of the Trade-Off; we're not supposed to put money into our trades.

I've started with Craigslist and BarterThing. Craigslist is popular in this area, as well as being free. BarterThing is free and is home to a bartering community. It also allows the user to specify how far from home (s)he is willing to make the trade. This is important because avoiding mailing costs makes bartering more cost efficient, as well as more environmentally friendly (no petroleum use for shipping). I will continue looking for other free barter sites, and after I've used several of them, I will provide an analysis of which sites are more productive and why. Stay tuned for it.

Happy trading,
-The Egg

Game Update and The Benefits of Mixed-Value Trading

The third week of the four-month Kathryn Vs. the Egg Trade-Off has come to an end, and I, the Egg am still where I ought to be - in the lead.

Kathryn lives in a relatively small town, one where she feels she won't be able to get many trades, so she has decided to short-change herself and wait until school starts and she moves back to her college town to keep trading.  This means that she will only be trading for half the lifetime of the competition, severely handicapping herself.

Kathryn seems to think she can't trade in her hometown.  I grew up in the same place, and once went from a paperclip to a formal gown with matching shoes and wrap in only two trades.  It can certainly be done.  If she would read the Top Ten Tips I posted last week, she could be highly competitive in the time before she moves.  I've suggested it in a burst of good sportsmanship, and kept quiet since on account of my sense of competition.

In the meantime, my life got rather busy, so I have only made one trade since my last Trade-Off update.  I made my trade using Tip #5 from  last week - "Target people whose interests you are ware of."  You may recall that the week before last I had a bottle of wine, a picture-poster, and two science fiction books.  The rules of the competition state that I must trade all of these objects in my next encounter.  The question I therefore posed myself was, "Who do I know who would like all of these things?"  The answer was my father.

Luckily, I was headed home that weekend anyhow.   I presented my collection of objects to my dad, who spent the weekend thinking, then came back with two proposals.  I took the second:  a different bottle of wine, a glass decanter, and six wine glasses that match the decanter.

This trade is a good example of a mixed-value trade.  To my dad, the bottle of Merlot was what had value.  He didn't really want the decanter set anyway, so it had little value to him.  This concept is something any barterer can utilize to his or her advantage.  It is the fact which the successful trader uses to get people to throw things in at the last second, things which may not mean much to the other person but which can be a positive addition to the barterer's cache.  The barterer need not name what (s)he wishes the other party to add to the offer; simply politely expressing disapproval with the standing offer is usually sufficient to cause the other party to give a better offer, or to add something to the standing offer.

Happy trading!

-The Egg

Top Ten Tips for Trading Triumphantly

Here are some basic ideas to keep in mind as you aspire to become a better barterer:

1. Go door-to-door in your own neighborhood.  This eliminates the cost in time, gas and air pollution of driving somewhere to trade with someone.  It also helps encourage a positive relationship with your neighbors.
2. Take a picture of large or fragile items.  A photograph is easy to carry and won't break when dropped.  Bring out the item itself after you've found someone interested in trading for it.
3. Don't be timid.  People are intrigued by the idea of trading, and many of them go searching their homes for something to trade because of the basic appeal of the idea of bartering.
4. Think about potential trading value of objects being offered to you.  If someone offers something you want for yourself, great!  If not, consider whether the item the person is offering would trade for something better than the one you've got.  You could take the item you get to someone else and trade again.
5. Target people whose interests you are aware of.  A bottle of cheap wine will probably be more valuable to (and bring more in trade with) students living in a social fraternity house than it will to someone who you already know doesn't drink.
6. Advertise.  This sounds silly, but social networking tools make it easy.  Text your friends about what you want to trade.  If you are involved with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and/or another such network, post your proposition there.  The more people who know about it, the more likely it is to get a good offer.
7. Don't be afraid to say no.  If someone offers you something, it's okay to turn him or her down and keep looking for someone to trade with.  Be nice about it, though.  You never want to burn bridges.
8. Know ahead of time what you're willing to trade.  Don't keep throwing in too many objects or dollar bills - this is how people can scam you, and it ends up costing you more.  Trades are supposed to be beneficial at least to you, and ideally to both parties.
9. Inspect the goods.  Always take a good look at what is being offered to you before you agree to the swap.  After a trade is made, what's done is done, and there are no takesies-backsies.
10. Trading down can sometimes be beneficial.  Combine Tip 4 and Tip 5 into one, and you get Tip 10!  If you know that you can get something really great from your best friend for the piece of junk being offered to you, it might be worth trading down to the piece of junk.

Happy trading!

-The Egg

Day 1 of the Trade-Off Now Complete!

It has now been 24 hours since the competition began.  Of the six of us who supposedly started with hair ties, only two of us have managed to obtain them and begin trading.  These two are, of course, myself and my good friend Kathryn, my co-initiate of this venture.  The rest of the participants are in the process of obtaining their own hair ties.

Kathryn got started right at 1:00pm yesterday, the starting time, by trading her hair tie to her mother for a white porcelain pitcher.  This is how most of us start off in these competitions - people we're close to have some things they would get rid of anyway, and trade them to us for our starting objects.  It's a gimme, but it works.  There are always people who have things they don't want, but which would trade better than the object you've got.

My family hosted a German foreign exchange student a while back, and even though she's gone back home, she's participating too.  She was probably asleep or close to it when the competition began.  She'll be joining in shortly.

Due to an engagement, I was unable to begin trading until after 3:00, but I began my campaign swiftly upon arrival back home.  One of my housemates was moving out, and traded me a cold beer for my hair tie.  I promptly took the beer to my neighbors, a house full of college boys, with whom I swapped for an electric lamp with a nice shade.  It's all about knowing who will value what you have more than other people might.

I took the lamp to another neighbor, whose wife traded for it with an unburned fancy scented candle in a glass container with a very nice wood base.  Her husband is allergic to such artificial scents, so it was sitting in the bottom of her closet.  Again, a lot of people have things they don't actually want.

The two grandkids of one of my other neighbors were in the street by their cars.  She pulled out a bottle of wine.  he offered a duffle bag, two science fiction books, and a black-and-white picture poster.  They consolidated, and I got all of it except the duffle bag in return for the fancy candle, which he told her she could keep, making her smile broadly.  The things he had offered were things he had wanted to get rid of anyway.  The wine was valuable to her.  I let myself smile; I had reached a level of value in my Trade-Off campaign, in four trades, and on one day.

Happy trading!

-The Egg

A Productive Game for Fun in Hard Times

My good friend and I are highly competitive, and we know how to have good clean fun.  She and I decided to start a long-term trading competition, and invited our friends to join us.  It started on her birthday, and will end on mine.

Participants each trade their starter object with someone else for a better object, and continue the swapping process until the end date.  This year's starter object is a simple hair tie band, the kind without decorations.

There are nine rules for this competition:

1. Participants must start with the starter object, and must begin trading only at or after 1:00pm on June 30th, 2009, Pacific Coast time.
2. No other objects, favors, sums of money, or anything else may be used to augment the starter object or any subsequent trade.
3. Participants may not trade with one another.
4. If a participant receives multiple items during a trade, all of these items must be put into the following trade.
5. Trading for cash, checks, gift cards, or other forms of money are not allowed.
6. No participant may make two subsequent trades with the same party - there must be at least one trade with a different party between two trades with the same party.  (The only exception to this rule is an "undo" trade wherein the objects return to their original owners before other trades are made.)
7. Trading must cease at or before 1:00pm on October 25, 2009, Pacific Coast time.
8. Any rule disputes are to be settled via a consensus between myself and my good friend who started this competition with me.
9. These rules must be honored in spirit, not just to the letter.

We created a Facebook group, and attached an event page to it.  Six of us, including my good friend and I, will compete for four months to see who can be the most productive barterer.  This blog will follow our competition.

Happy trading!

-The Egg