(FYI)
I’ll Trade You My ‘Titanic’ for Your ‘Spider-Man’
Bob Tedeschi
One of the world’s oldest forms of commerce has finally gotten a foothold in the newest commercial medium.
Online bartering, an idea with many proponents but few successes, is emerging as an e-commerce model, bolstered by a spate of new Web sites run by veterans of the e-commerce industry. And although these sites won’t soon challenge Amazon.com or eBay, they are carving out a significant niche in what could be a highly profitable business.
It sounds unlikely, but it’s true, according to Billy McNair, chief executive of Peerflix, a DVD trading service based in Palo Alto, Calif. The company’s 250,000 members post titles of DVD’s they are willing to trade on the Web site (peerflix.com), which then facilitates the swaps by giving members printable forms that include postage and the recipient’s address.
La La Media, which operates LaLa.com and is also based in Palo Alto, is another recent darling of the Silicon Valley venture capital community, having raised $9 million since the business formed in June 2005. According to Bill Nguyen, one of the company’s founders, the site has built an inventory of two million titles since its debut in March, and every day members add 30,000 copies to the collection.
Run as they are by tiny teams of entrepreneurs, though, these companies embody the kind of asymmetric economic threat that has forced established businesses to at least take notice, if not entirely alter their business plans. Take books, for instance. PaperBackSwap’s members trade 30,000 books weekly for $1.59 apiece, according to Richard Pickering, one of the site’s founders. The company is now exploring ways to help members trade nonmedia items, possibly within distinct geographical areas.
“You’re going to see a lot more from online bartering in the future,” Mr. Pickering said. “This is just in its infancy.”
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