Subscription Trade

The thing with subscription boxes is that they are great, and you get a monthly "gift" and surprise every month.  However, that is also the problem because you don't know what you are going to get.  There are bond to be items that you don't like or need.  For example, I received a super cute umbrella in my April Popsugar Must Have, while I normally like nice umbrellas, the problem is, I moved to California the last year, aka, the land of no rain.  Thus probably not an item I would use much. As such, I love the ability to be able to trade my subscription boxes.

Thanks to My Subscription Addition, she created a great online swap marketplace for subscription box items.  To be able to swap, you need to first register with an email, and then once you are approved and accepted, you can begin trading.

You can browse the listings or search for a item you are looking for in the search box.

Once you find an item you want, you can request a swap.

You also get to pick which swapper you want to swap from.  The site also provides you swapper ratings.

Once a request is made, you wait for the other swapper to pick items from your list that they think would make a fair trade.  You will have the ability to review the requested items and accept, make a counter or cancel the swap.  Once both sides agree, you will get a notice requesting shipment of the products.

After receiving the item, both parties can enter ratings for each other to help out the community. 

I used this site a few times and have received great trades.  Most recently I traded the entire March Popsugar Must Have box for Jacobsen Cocktail Salt (value $14) and two Carmona NY soup bowls (value $55?). 

The March Popsugar Must Have box has a total retail value around $134 which I traded for a total retail value of $69 for the follow items:

Popsugar Must Have $45 ($40 + tax) + $12.65 for shipping = $57.65.   The secret is, I actually got my Popsugar for $29.55/box for a sale they had... so my real cost = $42.20.  

Regardless, this was a good trade for me because while I could EVENTUALLY have use most of the items in the box (after some serious dust collection), it didn't have anything I really want, and I traded for something that I used immediately (1 day after I received it).  When you trade, you have to make the decision what is a good trade for you.  

So what do you think of trading? 

The other popular trading site are:

• MakeUpTalk, a traditional chat forum,
• BeautyBoxSwap, a trading facebook community, and
• Ipsy, a monthly make up subscription has its own trade forum

I haven't tried the three mentioned above, thus I can't tell you the experiences on there.