I wish there was an option of giving away items without receiving anything in return except credits towards a future item. Like the way Lala.com works for swapping CDs.

For instance, I have a dress that needs a new home. But the poster who is watching it doesn’t currently have any items that would work for me. Rather than waiting around, I wish I could just send this dress to her, and receive 1 Rehash Point… which I could later “spend” when I wanted an item from someone but I didn’t have anything she wanted! (In exchange for her item, that 1 point would be subtracted from my account and added to hers.)

There would have to be a value for these points—for instance, 1 point for items with a retail value of up to $25; 2 points for items $26 – $50, 3 points for $51 – $75, etc. with a maximum number of points that any single individual could earn before they had to spend points to ensure the consistent flow of goods.

I think this sort of system could open up a lot of trading… and would certainly help me to empty out my closet more quickly.

Thanks for all your hard work on this community.

Fountain Hills, AZ

That would be wicked awesome, but I’m not sure about the retail value thing. I like how it is now, negotiating for what the item is “worth” to the people.

Interlachen, Florida

Yeah, I agree that the dollar value would be a slippery slope… so I’d happily settle for 1 point per item. After all, if I didn’t like that “value,” I wouldn’t have to trade that way!

Fountain Hills, AZ

Before starting development on the site we considered a credit system, but it in practice it only somewhat works when you’re using one way or another. Mixing our current system with a point system wouldn’t function well at all.
Monetary value on arbitrary points on a free site is also next to impossible. Especially with something as subjective as clothing. It’s something nice to think about and maybe revisit in the future, but it’s highly unlikely we would implement something like that for clothing. It can work with books and media, since, for example, DVDs tend to have a fairly fixed market rate. Clothing is a completely different monster. I can take one of my grandfather’s old blazers and take it to Goodwill where they’ll sell it for $4.00, yet the same blazer gets in the hands of some chic San Francisco designer, adds a green button, and suddenly it sells for $400.00.

Miami, FL

Yeah, I sorta figured you’d reply with logic along those lines. Still, I wish there was a way I could give away some of my clothing without necessarily receiving someone else’s, immediately, in return. Any ideas?

On a related note, are you working on some creative setup to facilitate 3-way trades?

Fountain Hills, AZ