Just the FAQs

We support the concept of getting the most possible use out of manufactured goods before they finally end up in a landfill. Why SwapItGreen?

• Swap things you don't want to get things you need.
• Your castoffs may be someone else's treasure.
• Leave a smaller environmental footprint by promoting reuse and recycling.
• Create less waste in our landfills.
• Keep the planet green!

We appreciate the intentions of most swap sites, but we feel that many of them limit their value to their members by restricting their listings to a narrow range of categories (CDs, DVDs, video games, and books, for example) or by only supporting direct trades between two individuals, each of whom has a specific item the other wants and agrees that their items are of equal value. SwapItGreen lets you “sell” lots of kinds of items to whoever wants them, thereby earning the currency of the site, which you can then use to “buy” other items that are listed on the site. You can also save up to buy items that are worth more than any individual item you sell.

You can help SwapItGreen become a valuable resource for its members by regularly listing and selling items that have completed their usefulness to you but may still be of value to someone else. As a consumer, you can make the site work for you by thinking of SwapItGreen as a place to go when there is something you need or want. And by the way, it’s fun to just browse frequently for pleasant surprises you didn’t even know you wanted. You may find that certain other members frequently list items that particularly suit your interests, and you can ask SwapItGreen to notify you by email when they list new items. Or you can “watch” a category by requesting to be notified when a new item is listed in that category, say if you’re planning for a new baby or always on the lookout for interesting stuff to sell in your booth at the Antiques mall.

Our unit of currency is called a trading point. On the SwapItGreen site, the price of available items is specified in trading points. The price is indicated by a number preceded by a stylized green leaf:

To earn trading points, you list and sell your unwanted items on SwapItGreen. You then use your earned trading points to buy any items you want from our inventory.

Since the SwapItGreen site began, we've been giving a little bonus to our new members, to help them experience a bit of the joy of buying before they actually sell anything. For each of the first 5 items they list, they receive 2 trading points free from SwapItGreen. So, when you join, you can earn up to 10 trading points to spend before anyone offers to buy your listings. There's no big fanfare about this -- we don't guarantee that it will last forever, but it is still in effect now. If you want to see how much stuff is available for your 10 points (or however many points you have), log into your account and click on "What can I get?" in the page header.

To make buying from your very first day as a swapper even easier, we have just added a new feature that allows members to buy up to 100 trading points with a payment transaction using any of the payment methods that SwapItGreen supports (PayPal, Google Checkout, or credit card). For details, click on the FAQ "Can I buy trading points if I find something I really want before I have accumulated enough points by selling?"

Membership in the SwapItGreen community is FREE.

Yes, but it is a small amount relative to the value of items you acquire by swapping.

Each time you buy an item with trading points, you pay a small transaction fee to SwapItGreen. The amount of the transaction fee is included in the item description that you see before making an offer on an item.

When you list an item on SwapItGreen, you are agreeing to pay for shipping the item to the buyer. This model greatly simplifies creating a listing because you do not have to estimate the cost of shipping, an inexact science when you do not know in advance the size of the shipping container, the final weight, or the destination of the package.

While the seller absorbs the actual shipping costs, a balance is achieved when the seller becomes the buyer in subsequent transactions and enjoys the benefits of free shipping.

You pay transaction fees for items you buy using your SwapItGreen wallet. When you join SwapItGreen, we set up a wallet for your account and start you off with $5.00 in the wallet. When you purchase items, your transaction fees are deducted from your wallet. If there is not enough remaining in your wallet to cover a transaction fee, you are prompted to add money to your wallet to cover the fee, using a PayPal account, a Google Checkout account, or a credit card. Credit card processing is done through Authorize.NET. To add to your wallet, you select the payment method you prefer and enter into a payment transaction using PayPal, Google Checkout, or credit card authorization. When you have added money to your wallet, your purchase is completed.

If you need or want to purchase trading points to make an offer on an item you would like to purchase, you can also do that through PayPal, Google Checkout, or credit card authorization. For details, click on the FAQ "Can I buy trading points if I find something I really want before I have accumulated enough points by selling?"

That is up to you. When you join SwapItGreen, you provide a screen name by which you will be identified to SwapItGreen members and visitors. Some members are quite creative with their screen names; have fun with yours! If you like, you may provide additional information in your member profile, but it is not necessary. Part of the enrollment process is to provide SwapItGreen with an email address by which we can contact you, your first and last names, and a primary shipping address. SwapItGreen never provides an email address of one member to another member. Your primary shipping address (or another that you provide at the time you buy) will be given to the seller when you buy an item. A member wishing to contact you about an item you’ve listed must submit a message through SwapItGreen that will be stored in your Messages account. We do not prevent members from identifying themselves or providing more direct contact information to another member in a SwapItGreen message, but we do not encourage it.

You begin your enrollment on the SwapItGreen site, providing your email address and a password of your choice. We send an email to the address you provide. The email includes a link that takes you to the SwapItGreen site, where you can now log in to SwapItGreen using your email address and your password. On your first login, you will be prompted to complete the enrollment process. After you have logged in, you will notice that your overhead menu has more options than when you're not logged in (Dashboard, Add New Listing, My Account, and HelpDesk).

Your Dashboard is your personal control center for keeping track of your own trades, both as buyer and as seller, and of your SwapItGreen communications (that is, messages in your SwapItGreen inbox). In your seller zone, you will see the status of any sales in progress, with quick links to take care of any sales that are awaiting action on your part. In your buyer zone, you see the status of offers you have made, again with quick links to manage any that require action from you. You also see your current ratings as seller and buyer and have access to all of your individual feedback ratings and comments.

Your Account allows you to browse your current and past listings, offers, and purchases; to exchange messages with other members; and to customize your profile, your SwapItGreen contact information, and your preferences for when and how SwapItGreen communicates with you. You will want to check out your My Account options in familiarizing youself with the site after you sign up.

HelpDesk lets you send problem reports, questions, and requests to our support staff at SwapItGreen.

If you don't receive your email that enables you to validate yourself to SwapItGreen for your first login, there is a good chance that your email from SwapItGreen has been trapped by a SPAM filter. Many email service providers and internet service providers have SPAM filters to keep out the unsolicited email. Due to the volume of users we have, SwapItGreen.com sends a lot of email. This occasionally causes email service providers to interpret our emails as SPAM.

SwapItGreen.com uses several email addresses for communication with users. Therefore, the most effective way to make sure that you receive our email is to "whitelist" the entire domain. Click here to read instructions on how to set up your own email account to receive SwapItGreen emails in your inbox.

Your Dashboard is your personal control center for keeping track of your own trades, both as buyer and as seller, and of your SwapItGreen communications (that is, messages in your SwapItGreen inbox). In your seller zone, you will see the status of any sales in progress, with quick links to take care of any sales that are awaiting action on your part. In your buyer zone, you see the status of offers you have made, again with quick links to manage any that require action from you. You also see your current ratings as seller and buyer and have access to all of your individual feedback ratings and comments.

When you are logged in to the site, one of the functions available on your overhead menu is to add a new listing. Clicking on “Add New Listing” takes you to a page where you enter information about your item and submit the item to be listed on SwapItGreen. You may upload one or more images or the item from your computer.

As a bonus for signing up, you will receive 2 trading points for each item you list, up to five items, for a total of 10 additional trading points.

You must show at least one image of each item you list. Many sellers just take snapshots of their swap items with digital cameras and load the digital images on their home computers. When you list an item, SwapItGreen allows you to upload 1 or more digital images of it from files in .JPG or .GIF graphics format.

THE EASY WAY: If your item has a Universal Product Code (UPC), Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), or International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and is in Amazon.com’s huge product database, you can provide that number when listing the item, and SwapItGreen will get its image, product name, and descriptive information from Amazon. This makes it very easy to list items like books, CDs, DVDs, and most products that carry a UPC or ISBN on their packaging or on the products themselves. Our site shows you how to identify a UPC or ISBN.

The seller. When you list an item on SwapItGreen, you are agreeing to pay for shipping the item to the buyer. While the seller absorbs the actual shipping costs in a single transaction, a balance is achieved when the seller becomes the buyer in subsequent transactions and in turn enjoys the benefits of free shipping.

If you have been swapping with us for a while, you may remember that our initial model called for the seller to estimate the cost to ship when listing an item and for the buyer to reimburse the seller for exactly the estimated shipping cost, through PayPal, as part of the checkout. However, we soon found that the buyer-paid shipping approach was actually inhibiting swappers from creating new listings, because estimating the cost of shipping is an inexact science when you do not know in advance the size of the shipping container, the final weight, or the destination of the package. Our current seller-paid shipping model greatly simplifies creating a listing and does allow active swapping members to enjoy repayment in-kind when they buy items on the site.

When you locate an item you want, you must have enough trading points in your trading account to cover the amount you want to pay the seller before you can offer to buy it. SwapItGreen supports bidding on listed items, allowing you to offer to buy for fewer trading points than the listed amount. You can even offer more points than asked; maybe you notice that there are already offers made that the seller hasn't yet acted on, and you would like a better chance of success.

You make your offer from the listing’s Detail Page, by clicking on the “Place a bid” button. The Offer to Buy screen comes up, defaulting to calculation of the transaction fee based on the amount asked by the seller. If you want to bid a different amount, change the value in the "Bid trading points" text box. Then click on "Calculate Transaction Fee" to recalculate the transaction fee based upon your bid. If the result is acceptable to you, click on "Place a bid."

By making your bid, you are committing the number of trading points you have bid. The committed trading points are deducted from the total available points in your account. If the seller declines your offer or if you retract the offer before it is accepted by the seller, those points are put back in your account.

If you want to make a bid, but you don't have enough trading points in your account, there is now an option to purchase trading points for your account using your PayPal or Google Checkout account, or by charging to your credit card. For details, click on the FAQ "Can I buy trading points if I find something I really want before I have accumulated enough points by selling?"

SwapItGreen notifies you by email when the seller accepts or declines your offer. If your offer is accepted, the email you receive will tell you if you need to log in to your account and add money to your wallet to cover the transaction fee. If your wallet covered the transaction fee, your purchase has been completed without further action from you.

Yes, now you can! We've had so many requests for a feature like this that we have put it in the new SwapItGreen release.

We hope you will continue to use the site as it is intended, by selling your items to earn points and using your accumulated points to buy items listed by other members. However, we understand the frustration of finding an item you love and having to wait and wait while you build up points, perhaps eventually losing the chance to buy it.

Here's how purchasing points using our normal checkout methods works:

• From an item detail page: When you visit the detail page for an item, you will see a new button, "Buy trading points," in your options for acting on the item. Selecting this option allows you to then enter the number of points you want to buy, select your payment method just as you do for adding dollars to your wallet, and check out through any of the available payment options (PayPal, Google Checkout, or credit card). After your payment is completed, you are returned to the item detail page, where you can make your bid.
• From the pop-up window for placing a bid on an item: From the item detail page, you may still select the "Place a bid" option, which displays a pop-up window in which you enter your bid. This window also provides the option to buy trading points if you wish to bid more points than you have in your trading account. The path through payment checkout is the same as from the detail page, and after checkout, you are sent to the item detail page.
• By selecting "Buy trading points" from the "My Accounts" menu on any page where that menu is available: Selecting this menu option will start you through the path to enter the number of trading points you wish to buy and to pay for them using any of the SwapItGreen payment methods. After checkout, you are returned to the page you were on when you selected "Buy trading points" from the overhead menu.

All three of the options above for initiating a transaction to buy trading points allow you to purchase as many points as you want with a single transaction, within a designated minimum purchase and a designated maximum. To see the total amount of dollars you will pay for the number of trading points you are buying, click on the calculate button before you go to checkout. For now, we're going with one U.S. dollar for one SwapItGreen trading point.

When you sign up for membership in SwapItGreen, you agree to all of the site's Terms and Conditions. Please read them here and, as necessary, through the link on the footer menu.

From the Terms and Conditions, here are the specific kinds of items you agree not to list for swap when you sign up for SwapItGreen:

The available choices for Item Condition are:

• New
• Used – Like New
• Used – Good
• Used – Fair
• Used – Acceptable

Here are our guidelines for using them:

New
You should list an item as “New” only if it has never been used (or read, in the case of a book). Items originally sold shrink-wrapped or otherwise sealed (DVDs, CDs, video games, for example), should not have been opened. If an item is packed with custom packing materials, as are electronics, which you have unpacked and repacked without using the item, we think it is okay to list it as “New”, if you explain what you have done in the condition description. Another alternative would be to list as “Used – Like New” and explain in the condition description that you have not used the item but have unpacked it and repacked it. If you have not used the item but have had it for some period of time, we think it is appropriate to list it as “New” if it measures up to the description above, though you should probably explain in the condition description that it is not a recent purchase. Or, if it misses the “New” requirements, you could list it as “Used – Like New” and explain that you have never actually used it.

Used – Like New
You should list an item as “Used – Like New” only if it looks and performs as it did when it was new. Items that are sold shrink-wrapped or otherwise sealed should look as if they had just been opened. Protective parts that can be considered to be part of the item (dust jacket, DVD or CD case, etc.) should still be shiny, unscratched, unscuffed.

Used – Good
You should list an item as “Used – Good” only if it performs exactly as it was intended to perform. It need not look as good as it did when it was new, but any wear-and-tear should be minimal. If any part is missing, that should be stated in either the item description or the condition description. A hardcover book might even be considered “Good” though missing its dust jacket, if its binding is still in excellent condition, but it should be identified as missing the dust jacket. DVDs should not skip or stall. CDs should not skip. Instructions for video games should be included. Also, if there is any redeeming feature about the item that places it above the value its condition implies (First edition? Signed by the author or the artist? Good quality watch with a brand new battery?), by all means say so in the condition description.

Used – Fair
Functionality should be as for “Used – Good”, but a little bit more wear-and-tear is okay.

Used – Acceptable
You should list an item as “Used – Acceptable" if you feel it has worth to someone but might be considered a fixer-upper. You need to explain the “as-is” condition. A good quality watch that needs a new battery? A game without the original instructions? A still-listenable CD that has a flaw or two? A book with some dog-eared pages, some light underlining, and/or margin notes? Go ahead and list it (at a price consistent with its faults) and see if there are any takers.

When you agree to the web site's Terms and Conditions, you agree not to place a value of more than 1,000 trading points on any item you list. Aside from that condition, the asking price in trading points that you post is up to you, the seller. Some members try to decide what an item would be worth in real dollars, given its current condition and other factors such as popularity (of a movie, for example), rarity (of a collectible or an antique), or its likely appeal to a wide audience, and use that number. Others seem to charge less than they think the real dollar amount would be, and no doubt others may set a price that is more than the probable real dollar worth (possibly to build up trading points more quickly in their trading accounts). You can take a look at current listings to get some idea of the range of asking prices. If you are setting your asking prices too high, you may find that your listed items don’t get any offers, or you may only receive offers bidding less than your asking price. As long as there are no current offers for an item, you can edit its listing to modify the asking price (up or down).

This arises from the way sellers choose the applicable category when they list their items. They are allowed to choose either the top-level, more general, category or a subcategory or even a sub-subcategory. Items listed in a top-level category (for example, Books (Print)) will show up in the total count for Books (Print), but not in any of the subcategory totals. Some sellers intentionally select the top-level category when listing an item, which is fine, but some probably do it unintentionally. When you click on "Select Category", a list of top-level categories is displayed. If a category in the list has subcategories, you will see a plus sign (+) to the left of the category. To see the available subcategories, you have to click on the plus sign. A plus sign next to a category name always means that at least one more level of category refinement exists. This is a common technique for displaying things that relate to each other in a tree structure.

On the home page and while browsing the site, when you roll the mouse over a category name in the category menu, its list of subcategories automatically pops up, so most site visitors realize quickly that subcategories do exist and notice what they are. If they click on the top-level category name, the search results return everything listed in the top category, in all of its subcategories, in all of their subcategories, down to the very bottom of the tree. As a seller, if you list in a top-level category that becomes very large (DVDs & Movies, for example), your items may become lost in the search results. If you find this happening to some of your listed items, consider editing them to select a subcategory that is more specific. Notice that you may also request that SwapItGreen add a new category or subcategory. There is a link to do that, on the Add/Edit Listing page. Your request will be reviewed, and we will get back to you.

To be a good SwapItGreen seller:

• Do not list items that are prohibited on the site.
• Accurately represent the condition of the items that you list. Identify any scratches, dents, tears, or other imperfections in the condition description and, if possible, show the defects clearly in a picture.
• Respond as quickly as you can to offers made for your listed items.
• When you have accepted an offer and the buyer has paid, ship the item as quickly as you can.
• If you are unable to ship within a week, please let your buyer know your shipping plans. To do this, log in to SwapItGreen, use the My Account dropdown menu to go to your “My Listings” page, and click on the “To be shipped” tab. Below the image of the item to be shipped, there is an envelope icon that, when clicked, will allow you to send a message to the buyer’s SwapItGreen inbox.
• Be courteous in any contact messages to your buyers.
• Rate your buyers to let other members know how well they fulfilled their roles in your transactions.

To be a good SwapItGreen buyer:

• If an offer you make is accepted, log in and complete the checkout as soon as you can.
• If you make an offer for an item to be picked up in your local area and the offer is accepted, contact the seller through the SwapItGreen message system to arrange the pickup.
• Be courteous in any contact messages to sellers.
• When you have received (or picked up) an item you bought, go to your SwapItGreen dashboard and acknowledge that you have received the item.
• Rate sellers you buy from to let other members know how well they fulfilled their roles in your transactions. Be reasonable; remember that SwapItGreen “sellers” are actually offering items to be given away and should be allowed to ship as soon as it is convenient for them.

As the seller in a transaction, you may create a feedback report on the buyer at any time after you have accepted the buyer's offer. After you have created the feedback report for this specific transaction, you may modify it to change the rating and/or your comments, if you wish, but you will not be allowed to create another report for the same transaction.

To begin or edit a feedback report on a buyer, log in to the site, click on My Listings in the My Account dropdown menu and locate your listed item on the appropriate tab in your Seller Zone (Awaiting payment / Awaiting pickup / To be shipped / Shipped / Completed sales, depending on the current status of the transaction). One of the options you will find available when you hover over the thumbnail image of the item is to leave feedback. Click on that option to begin or change your feedback report. By the way, if a transaction turned out better than you originally thought, or you regret having left a negative comment, please remember to go back and amend the feedback report

A few days after your transaction is completed, if you have not yet left feedback for the buyer, SwapItGreen will send you an email to remind you to do so.

As the buyer in a transaction, you may create a feedback report on the seller at any time after you have paid for the item. After you have created the feedback report for this specific transaction, you may modify it to change the rating and/or your comments, if you wish, but you will not be allowed to create another report for the same transaction.

To begin or edit a feedback report on a seller, log in to the site, click on My Offers in the My Account dropdown menu and locate your purchased item on the appropriate tab in your Buyer Zone (To be picked up / Awaiting shipment / Awaiting delivery/ Closed, depending on the current status of the transaction). One of the options you will find available when you hover over the thumbnail image of the item is to leave feedback. Click on that option to begin or change your feedback report. By the way, if a transaction turned out better than you originally thought, or you regret having left a negative comment, please remember to go back and amend the feedback report

A few days after your transaction is completed, if you have not yet left feedback for the seller, SwapItGreen will send you an email to remind you to do so.

See the answer for the FAQ: "What are Email Preferences?".

Everything that can occur regarding your listings or your offers for other members' listings generates a message that is placed in your SwapItGreen message box. You have to log in to SwapItGreen to read messages in your message box. However, SwapItGreen can also send you email to let you know that something requiring your attention has occurred. We always send emails:

• To the seller when a member makes an offer for one of the seller's listed items.
• To the buyer when a seller accepts the buyer's offer.
• To both seller and buyer when a buyer pays for an item and when a seller ships an item.
• To a SwapItGreen member who receives a message from another member through the SwapItGreen message service.

There are a number of other events for which you may elect to receive email notifications or not. Among these are:

• After you make an offer for an item.
• When an offer you have made is declined.
• After you retract an offer you have made.
• When a member whom you have identified as one of your favorite sellers lists a new item.
• When a new item is listed in a category that you have selected on your Email Subscriptions page as a category to watch.
• Once a week to let you know if you have any outstanding tasks to perform in your SwapItGreen account.
• Once a month to deliver the SwapItGreen newsletter.

When you sign up for SwapItGreen, we default your email preferences so that you receive all of these email notifications. If there are any notifications that you prefer not to receive by email, go to the Email Preferences page in your account and uncheck the optional emails that you don't want.

The available choices for Item Condition are:

• New
• Used – Like New
• Used – Good
• Used – Fair
• Used – Acceptable

Here are our guidelines for using them:

New
You should list an item as “New” only if it has never been used (or read, in the case of a book). Items originally sold shrink-wrapped or otherwise sealed (DVDs, CDs, video games, for example), should not have been opened. If an item is packed with custom packing materials, as are electronics, which you have unpacked and repacked without using the item, we think it is okay to list it as “New”, if you explain what you have done in the condition description. Another alternative would be to list as “Used – Like New” and explain in the condition description that you have not used the item but have unpacked it and repacked it. If you have not used the item but have had it for some period of time, we think it is appropriate to list it as “New” if it measures up to the description above, though you should probably explain in the condition description that it is not a recent purchase. Or, if it misses the “New” requirements, you could list it as “Used – Like New” and explain that you have never actually used it.

Used – Like New
You should list an item as “Used – Like New” only if it looks and performs as it did when it was new. Items that are sold shrink-wrapped or otherwise sealed should look as if they had just been opened. Protective parts that can be considered to be part of the item (dust jacket, DVD or CD case, etc.) should still be shiny, unscratched, unscuffed.

Used – Good
You should list an item as “Used – Good” only if it performs exactly as it was intended to perform. It need not look as good as it did when it was new, but any wear-and-tear should be minimal. If any part is missing, that should be stated in either the item description or the condition description. A hardcover book might even be considered “Good” though missing its dust jacket, if its binding is still in excellent condition, but it should be identified as missing the dust jacket. DVDs should not skip or stall. CDs should not skip. Instructions for video games should be included. Also, if there is any redeeming feature about the item that places it above the value its condition implies (First edition? Signed by the author or the artist? Good quality watch with a brand new battery?), by all means say so in the condition description.

Used – Fair
Functionality should be as for “Used – Good”, but a little bit more wear-and-tear is okay.

Used – Acceptable
You should list an item as “Used – Acceptable" if you feel it has worth to someone but might be considered a fixer-upper. You need to explain the “as-is” condition. A good quality watch that needs a new battery? A game without the original instructions? A still-listenable CD that has a flaw or two? A book with some dog-eared pages, some light underlining, and/or margin notes? Go ahead and list it (at a price consistent with its faults) and see if there are any takers.

Sure. When you list an item, we force you to list in a category that has no more subcategories below it, so you must be as specific as possible about what the item is. When browsing, you can be as general or as specific as you like. If you are looking for a book, for example, you can select Books (Print) and see all of the books in all Books (Print) subcategories or you can go directly to Cookbooks if you are only looking for a cookbook.

In the beginning, we allowed sellers to list items in a higher-level category; for example, just in Books (Print). Now that we enforce more specific categorization, some of you longtime swappers may want to edit your listings to make them easier for buyers to find.

Here's a list of all the current categories and their subcategories: