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Need some input on my idea

by staciet
3 replies
I'm thinking about a new site and would like to hear some suggestions.

I am wanting to put up a site where people can exchange a certain thing. This is something people buy in packages, where they may not have use for everything in the whole package.

Just as an example, buy a package of blue and yellow rubber bands. You can use the blue rubber bands, but not the yellow ones.

I want to set up a place where someone could exchange all their yellow rubber bands with someone who has blue ones.

I was thinking about setting up a wordpress site and using wpforum for people to sign up and connect to each other. I've tested this out a little bit on one of my other wordpress blogs.

These items are all less than $1 in value.

I thought about having my own exchange, but don't want to get involved in the shipping and inventory part of it.


Here are my sticking points where I need some advice or suggestions:

I work full time and wouldn't have much time to manage this.

Do I leave people to just trust each other, pm each other for their own exchanges? That's my plan.



Can anyone think of any other pitfalls, or other software that would be better to use? This item is an accessory to a larger item that I would be able to advertise and probably would have some adsense on the site.

Thanks in advance for any insight!
#idea #input
  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    The one thing that jumps out at me is you mentioning the items are worth $1 dollar. If that's the case, why would people bother trading? It would be easier and faster just to buy more and toss the half you don't want.

    Now, that said, there's one critical (technical) thing you'd need to take care of that a basic forum might not handle. You need a way to tag each offer with the exact item in question, so a person can search and browse for posts regarding a specific item. That could be a quick modification to forum software, but it's something you ought to consider. Being able to find the exchange you're looking for would be key.

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  • Profile picture of the author staciet
    Ryan,

    Thanks for the feedback - that's exactly what I'm looking for. Maybe it doesn't even make sense.

    These items are a one time use item and there's someone out there making a piece that people can buy to add to their used item to make it re-usable more than once. He's doing a lot of ppc advertising and I've seen him advertise on other sites. This made me figure that people really don't want to throw these things out.

    What I am thinking about doing, I don't see yet. So, it's an untapped niche, but I'm still trying to determine if there would be a need.

    I was thinking that I would have people use the name or color of what they want to exchange, as well as quantity on their post. Or the more popular ones, I could create a separate category for.

    If the exchange part doesn't take off, I was hoping I could at least get some active discussions going on what people's favorites are, etc. and hopefully get some affiliate sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author Domenic Carlson
      If you're leaving people to deal with their own exchanges and just advertising to them, you may be better served with a Facebook app or page (provided the product isn't embarrassing.) This seems like a kind of social exchange, it might take off quicker on a social network than if you slowly build up SEO and run PPC.
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