We are pleased to announce that Swapsity is now available in the Greater Vancouver Region of British Columbia. A warm welcome to all Canadians joining us from BC! We hope you'll enjoy our bartering service. While spare cash becomes an oxymoron for some Canadians, bartering is an effective alternative. It can help you creatively cope with the economic downturn and embrace a simpler, greener lifestyle.

All Members: Postings by Province

You will notice that your items, skills and WishLists will be automatically posted in your home region. In other words, if you are based in Vancouver, your listings will be shown in British Columbia. For simplicity, everything you post stays in one region. You can change your home region in the user settings by updating the view region.

Bear in mind that our search function is also region-specific. Simply switch the region to find listings in a different province. Easy!

New Members: How to start swapping in BC?

In order to start swapping goods and services on Swapsity, you first need to post everything you want to barter. Unload all the books, CDs, DVDs, or videogames that have been gathering dust in your closet and de-clutter your home of furniture, toys, clothes, sports gear or electronics you no longer use. Share your talents, skills and knowledge with the rest of the community. You can trade virtually anything! For example, you can offer tutoring, dance lessons, yoga lessons, hair-cutting services, artistic skills, web design, car pools, dog-walking or grocery help. Take a peek at our previous blog post about swapping skills to get more ideas and learn how it works. Visuals help, so go ahead and post lots of pictures. You will also need to put together a WishList of things you need or want to receive in exchange for your treasures or talents. Swapsity doesn't charge any transaction fees for your trades, so swap to your heart's content!

Once you're done posting a laundry list of all the stuff you want to trade, help us spread the word about Swapsity. The more people in the Swapsity community, the better the barters get!

All Members: Local vs Cross-Province Barter

Not only does our BC expansion make Swapsity available to Canadians in the West, it also opens up new opportunities to our current members in Ontario. You now have a choice of local or cross-province bartering. As long as there is good communication between both parties, services such as web design and development, language translation, freelance writing or consulting can easily be traded remotely. Moreover, you can now swap vacation homes! Wouldn't you love to trade a long weekend in Vancouver for a long weekend in Toronto without shelling out hundreds of dollars for a hotel? Hard goods can also be shipped within Canada. Take a look at our tips on shipping options within Canada and check out the Canada Post rate calculator to assess the cost. When you can't find desired goods or services locally, expand your search and look for sweet barter deals in other parts of Canada. Wishing you much success in your local and cross-province swaps with your fellow Canadians!