Discussion Forums - Questions about SwapaCD

ive only been here a month and so far ive sent out 17 CDs and have only received 2 in return....i am hesitant to post the rest of my collection because i dont really want to pay to send out hundreds of cds if i'm not going to get anything in return....any tips to share on how to get more items on my wish list?

what do you mean by you have only recieved 2?  Are members not sending out cd's to you, or are the items you are looking for not available in the system?  Luck here depends on how varied your music tastes are, to be honest.  I do well because I'm looking for relatively popular titles, but others who are looking for more obscure music, not so much.

I've been a member just over 3 months. Have not received a single cd from my wish list, but I'm not surprised considering what I'm looking for there. But I've benefitted by routinely looking through the list of new postings and finding titles that could have been on my wish list if I had thought of them. I've also used deals in the bazaar to fill in some gaps in my collection. So this site has worked for me so far, but only because I have been very proactive. In other words, you can't necessarily sit and wait and expect to get much, wish lists seem to be a long term process.

I have the same problem, both here and on DVD Swap.  Luckily, I can transfer the credits for those two to Paperback Swap, where I *can* get stuff I want.  However, I also have a policy of not acquiring more than a certain number of credits--if I do, I put my shelf/tower on vacation hold until I've used some up.

Thanks for all the comments, I appreciate your feedback...I probably wont post my collection here because all I'm doing is amassing credits and the titles on my wish list are not popular titles...wish i had the time to be more proactive here...not sure what to do with all these cds ;)

you may want to try craiglist, but you won't get market value by any means.

I have been a member here for a few years now.  I sent out a lot of cd's.  I have received many great cd's.  However, things have slowed for me.  Understandable.   My wish list hovers around 200.  Most I expect will never be granted.  They are rare, but there is always hope. Some are not even available for sale on any site.  But every now and then I get that email notice that a CD I have wished for has been entered into the system and has been mailed.  I am exciited becuase I just got this very swapacd message yesterday.  Two years on my wish list, a very rare classical guitar cd is in the mail to me.  YES!

My advise.  Continue to buy what you want now.  Pad your wish list with great cd's.  Just like fishing, be patient. You will land the big one.

What appears to matter here, regarding getting bites on your wish list, appears to be spreading your net sufficiently wide.  In other words, if you're interested in a particular performer or composer, do a search for all of that performer's or composer's albums, not just a single one.  In many, many cases particular albums are continually re-released under different numbers, so you put all of them on your wish list.  Or twenty albums by a particular performer when you really will be satisfied with one or two.  I've been here about three weeks.  I have almost eight hundred albums on my wish list and I get several hits every day.  This website's database is truly huge, containing by no means just the CD's listed by us members but tens of thousands of others gathered from God knows where. There is, I'm sure, no even vaguely popular performer who doesn't have twenty or thirty albums in the database.  Search for them.  List them on your wish list. The hits will roll in.  This is NOT like ordering a CD from Amazon.  You list twenty or thirty and you get one.  Which of course means that if you list two or three hundred you'll get ten.  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  Database strategy is pretty much the same over most databases.  Once you grasp it, you'll have it for life.  I'm not connected with whoever runs this website in any way, but I'm convinced that everyone can use the program to get pretty much what they want if they think about how it works.  I joined on August 16th and already have 44 offered CD's lined up waiting for me to get credits for the 19 CD's I've mailed out in response to other people's requests.  No one should give up hope.  Just figure out how to use this website to your own advantage.  Take care!    

When I first joined, I shipped many more than I received, amassing credits...  It took me over a year to learn the importance of setting rank to establish position.  If you put high demand titles at the top of the list, and you are last in line, you will have a long wait ahead of you.

The more titles you have in Position 1, the more CDs will show up in the mailbox.  Some folks here would like to keep the art of positioning a secret, but I think newbies deserve to know the basics.

Put titles where you hold position "2" near the top, and play with the positioning. See what titles have an estimated  position of "1" in two weeks when placed at the very top.  Keep the titles that WILL move to #1 near the top.  When they do hit #1, slide them down the list, making room for other #2 titles.  However, keep them high enough that they don't slip back down to #2.  Sometimes you will even find a #3 position title that will move to #1 in two weeks.  DO NOT waste the top rankings on titles when you are the only person wishing for them.  Put those at the END of your list.

Keep in mind that other users will be actively adjusting positions too, so it is a good idea to look over your entire wishlist on occasion.  Good luck getting some ships your way!