We’ve seen the adverts about Swapitshop on TV, read the Ciao opinions and remembered the days of multi-coloured Swapshop with Noel Edmonds and the rather annoying Keith Chegwin, so we thought we would give it a go seeing as we had loads of doubles of beanie babies to get rid of. To the younger reader, Swapshop used to be the SMTV programme of it’s day way back in the late 1970s and early 80s except it wasn’t as funny!
On arrival it looks pretty impressive with loads of blue ellipses dotted all over a white screen. The idea of Swapitshop is trade or swap unwanted items (toys, CDs, DVDs, books etc) for articles that you did want. It works on a similar principle to other on-line auctions except the currency in this case is Swapits rather than money! Swapitshop describe the whole system as “fantabulous” that instantaneous made us cringe! We continued to read all the rules and frequently asked questions (FAQs) to get a good overall feel of the system. The ideas sounded really good in principle, but as we continued to read on we were amazed at the lack of thought or substance this site to offer!
The site was littered with gapping huge holes, a bit like England’s defensive back four on a bad day. The first problem was that the site was aimed at children rather than adults. Anyone who has experienced dealing with the majority of children via on-line auctions on sites such as Ebay, Yahoo or Ebase5 usually thinks of failure and unreliability after the auction close. Children don’t fully comprehend the obligations of putting in bids on auctions or the rules. Most children forget about the extra costs involved like postage and packing. Others seem to bid on auctions because they really want the auction item but don’t have the necessarily have the money. Before we get slammed, we agree that not every child behaves in this way. We’ve had some really good experiences of dealing with kids buying and selling items via auction.
The second problem we noticed was the number of chances you got to send in your items to SwapitShop. SwapitShop handle the distribution of items swapped unlike other auction sites. Although this might not be a problem having a so-called middleman between the two parties, our biggest concern was that you effectively have 3 chances to send your items to SwapitShop. You are initially given 3 days to send your items to SwapitShop then you get a polite email warning. Another 3 days and then another, and so on three times! It’s like having a ‘doggies’ chance effectively. If at the end of the 9 or 12 days still no items have been sent they credit the person (buyer) with their Swapit credits back and that’s it! No punishment or negative ratings for the person who “welched out” of the deal! Staying on the ratings bandwagon this site has no ratings system.
Another problem was if you are involved with multiple swaps. You have to send multiple parcels to Swapitshop for each individually placed item. If you manage to swap all of your 50 individual beanie babies you have to send 50 multiple packages, (£75 just on packaging!)!
Another problem are that the swap descriptions are very short, most are unclear and the majority de-void of any or very little (10 words if you are lucky) information. Having experienced buying up items that have little or no description makes me extremely wary of taking bidding. Although, Swapitshop have a guarantee system of it you don’t like it or that the item is damaged or misleading they will give your credits back. Our argument is that the auction items should have a proper description and if possible a photo (not an option at present)
There are no facilities to ask questions on swap items, which we think is very poor indeed. It is always a good idea to ask questions if you are unsure. Not having any method of asking questions is very poor!
The biggest fundamental flaw was determining how much a “Swapit” was worth. Maybe we should have asked Gordon Brown? We couldn’t determine how much anything was worth, maybe Gordie would have a better explanation! People were listing items with absolutely no idea of how much credits to start off the bidding. One child had listed something and added to the description “do not buy because its crap”, with the amount of set at 1 credit and his plea had gone unnoticed. Having an auction listed in pounds or dollars you can determine how much something costs. Having something down starting at 200 swapits and an acceptable bid of 500 swapits means absolutely nothing to us! One person had over 100 beanies, which is a lot of money £400 depending on the beanies, which weren’t named, but had a starting value of 2000 credits and an acceptable value of 5000 credits. We got 10 credits for signing up and another 40 credits, if we added 2 items onto the site. That’s 50 credits out of nothing. SwapitShop have stated that crisp manufacturers will have future promotions. Effectively someone could go out and gather loads of crisp packs and get these beanies basically nothing. How many points per crisp packet is another matter. If this was your child listing their toys would you let them do this? We wouldn’t!
Other problems we found were that children could get hold of adult rated computer games or videos. There are no checks that we could see. Although, on most auction sites there aren’t any checks, but with auction sites you have to be 18 to sign up. None of the items were regulated. People/children were listing empty boxes, pencils and CD copy of Eminem’s latest album (illegal in its own right!). When you decided to have a look at a swap item it was like looking at a P60 – drab, not very interesting and confusing!
That’s all the bad or very poor points we found out about the site. The good points was that it had the potential to be quite a good idea, similar to that of Swap Shop (SMTV of the 1970’s & 80’s). People used to swap their prize Chopper (bike) for a Space Hopper (bouncy orange thing). This site allows you to accumulate credits and then use the credits to buy items that you want. Swapitshop was very easy to join up. We were on-line having a look within 2 minutes of joining. If has a very flashy scroll bar when searching items within the Swapitshop mall. There isn’t a load of adverts (at the moment) so searching and scrolling around is relatively fast. The fun centre of the home page isn’t up and running yet so that gets a neutral comment seeing as it’s a new site.
We can’t comment of the site’s effectiveness because of the fundamental flaws or problems that exist. I don’t think we would want to use because of these flaws. The problems we feel exist are problems of auction descriptions (very little or no information), regulation over listings (empty boxes & CD copies of music), what effectively are Swapit’s worth, no ratings system, very little auction descriptions, no photos and also dealing with pre-teenage children on an auction-esque site. It looks good in theory but we feel is fundamentally flawed major style. The site looks very well designed but we won’t be using it all letting our children use it, which is a shame because it looks a nice idea on paper but serious flawed in practice.
More details
Content Update
Occasionally
Security & Privacy Statement
Satisfactory
Search Facility
Average
Bid Tracking Function
Satisfactory
Ability to Customise
None
Customer Service Support
Satisfactory
Client Number / Order Number
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