Old Switcheroo - Swap Your Stuff

Old Switcheroo was inspired by some other nameless sites that attempt to do the same thing: allow people to trade their stuff (books, music, movies and video games) with other people. The places where I think Old Switcheroo gets it right are these: simplicity and methodology.

Simplicity

I built the site from the ground up with the idea that every action the user takes should be the simplest one possible. The signup process is a perfect example.

To signup, all that is asked for is your email. Enter your email, then you’re done signing up. Why? Because I have heard and read several times that people shirk signing up for services online because they don’t have time to sign up. I’ve heard that excuse when there were only 6 fields to fill out. My thought process went like this: “Well, if six fields is too many, and obviously zero is not enough, let’s shoot for one field to signup.” And there you have it, the simplest possible signup that can work.

I also tried to keep the design as simple and uncluttered as possible. While it would be nice to fill the application with 10 zillion features and splatter all those links out on one page, I stuck with the minimum amount of functionality that would make the service work well while keeping the interface free from cruft.

Methodology

Old Switcheroo follows this paradigm: “People have too much stuff. People want to get rid of their excess stuff, but they also like to get new stuff.” So Old Switcheroo allows people to list their stuff so that other people can request it. When the item in question makes it to the requester, the old owner of the item receives a credit. They can then use that credit to get more stuff. People get rid of the media they no longer want and are free to get other media that they want. There are no complicated swapping/trading schemes to figure out. Get what you want, when you want it.

Some of the other (larger) sites focus on one thing at a time. Either books, or CDs, or DVDs, but never all at once. I think they did this because they thought something might explode. Well, I pushed the limits and found no explosions when I let users swap all those types of media, and then I added video games to the mix! Living dangerously, I know. But it all works, and there is no need to have multiple accounts for multiple sites, and no need to transfer credits from one account to another. In Old Switcheroo, all of a users credits belong to one account. All swapping can be done in one spot.

This was only aimed to be a brief write-up, and I’m sure I’ve exceeded that limit already. So, if this sounds interesting give it a whirl.