Swap and Buy sites take on a life of their own

LETHBRIDGE – social media has proven it’s here to stay.

Twitter and Facebook have millions of subscribers who log on every day.

With a click of the mouse you can be connected to people around the world or in your own city.

Here in Lethbridge, a community of its own has sprouted from a popular site.

The Lethbridge Swap and Buy page on Facebook has nearly 20,000 members, and it continues to grow.

Some users say they are even addicted to the site.

“Like, half my house is from swap and buy. My bed frame, my tables, a mirror, shoe racks, you name it,” says Corlee Torok, a self-described swap and buy addict.

Torok says she is hooked on swap and buy. She will scour pages until she hits the jackpot, “When you find a good deal, like something you were looking for and you find it and it’s perfect and you win or you get it and its like hundreds of dollars less than what you were anticipating, it’s like a euphoric feeling, like euphoric!”

The Lethbridge Swap and Buy page was created six-years ago, it’s grown well beyond expectations.

“I think we had about 100 people a week that were joining, and right now we have between 200 and 400 people a day,” says co-creator Terri Dillabough.

As the number of followers increased, they recruited help to ensure it was successful, now there’s 11 administrators monitoring 18,000 members.

“The group’s grown exponentially more than we had expected to, but it has definitely become what we created it for,” adds Dillabough.

The page has gone beyond finding a bargain. Users have turned the social media outlet into it’s own community.

“It really has become a swap group, meaning that people are swapping information and donating items and it really is just this huge community thing,” says Dillabough.

Some users log on to the site for more than just a business transaction.

“It’s Lethbridge’s fountain of knowledge. If you’ve got a question about anything, a hair stylist that you want to go see, If you’re brand new in Lethbridge, you just moved here, you want to know the best night club to go to or where to meet people or what grocery store has the best deal on peanut butter, you can ask those questions on the swap and buy group and within seconds you get like 50 answers,” adds Torok.

With the demand for local swap and buy pages growing, it’s demonstrating the desire some have to take more control of a transaction.

“The community is much more inclusive than on sites like Kijiji and, that two way communication back and forth between buyer and seller and even third party really helps foster a sense of community for folks,” says Social Media Specialist for Lethbridge College, Rod Leland.

But, in order to draw users in and keep them, swap and buy pages have strict guidelines for members. But there are consequences for those who don’t follow the rules.

“They suspended from the group for three days, and then a seven day suspension, then that becomes a month suspension and then if they are continuously doing the same thing, then they unfortunately get banned,” adds Dillabough.

For those avid users like Torok there is nothing worse than being deleted from the page, “If you do no-show and somebody calls you out on it, your sort of black listed and nobody wants to be black listed on swap and buy”

This inclusive group idea doesn’t just work anywhere, it’s seems to flourish in smaller settings like southern Alberta.

“Right now the trend that we will see is these swap and buy pages are going to be more appropriate for smaller communities, larger communities are often dominated by the use of Craig’s list that breaks down the areas to communities and that tends to be very effective for those cities,” adds Leland.

Whether you’re hunting for a deal, getting rid of excess clutter or simply sharing a great tidbit of information, swap and buy is a one stop shop in your own back yard, no shipping required.

Here is a list of some safe online swap and buy tips to keep in mind:

• Each item is bought “as is”
• Always pay cash
• Meet in a public place
• Take or tell a friend where you are going
• Don’t share your address,
• Don’t use photos that can identify your home