Music
A Swap Meet for Your Used CDs
The Wall Street Journal Online
By Vauhini Vara
New Web Sites Let Users Trade Music, DVDs and Games; An Unsuccessful Hunt for Elvis
If compact discs are practically obsolete, imagine what used CDs must be worth. Some new Web sites are betting the answer is something.
The sites, with names like Peerflix, BarterBee, TitleTrader and Lala (which launches today), are aiming to give consumers a second lease on life on their CDs, movies and videogames by allowing them to trade them for better ones. In the age of the iTunes Music Store and digital devices like the iPod, the sites are making an unusual gamble: that downloadable media won't displace people's collections of CDs, DVDs or shrink-wrapped videogames anytime soon.
For all the buzz around digital music, online downloads still make up fewer than 6% of music sales world-wide, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an industry trade group. An even smaller proportion of movies and videogames are sold as Web downloads, according to analysts.
Instead of receiving cash in exchange for, say, a copy of the Who's "Quadrophenia," members of the new sites collect points that can be used to buy other CDs, or other media like digital video discs, from fellow members. For now, Lala lists only CDs, while Peerflix focuses on DVDs. Other sites, like BarterBee and TitleTrader LLC, let people swap between categories -- a movie for a videogame, for example.
Here's how the sites work: After signing up online, you can create a list of used CDs, DVDs or videogames that you're willing to sell. If another member asks to buy something on your list, the site will notify you, usually by email. Once you agree to a sale, you have a few days to put the item in the mail. Some sites help with that step: Lala sends its members prepaid envelopes and CD cases, while Peerflix displays a page with an address on it that can be printed and folded into an envelope. BarterBee gives members the option of buying its branded envelopes, but they can also use their own.
The more items you sell, the more points you collect. (Some sites, but not Lala, also let you buy points outright.) You can make purchases once you've gathered enough points, plus a fee of $1 or more, payable via credit card. The seller gets the points, and the Web site collects the cash. Most of the sites rely on this cash for revenue, though some also feature advertising.
The new Web sites, which started to appear within the past year, aren't the first to hit on the idea of high-tech bartering. At FrugalReader.com, bookworms swap their own dog-eared novels for fresh ones. At SwapStyle.com, members trade pinstripe jackets and high-heel boots. A recent post in the "barter" section of Craigslist, the online classified-ads site, offered a new laptop computer in exchange for a van.
