It’s been an amazing year for us! It’s delightful to see the public and press recognize the value of barter and we’re pumped to see Swapsity benefit more people in the year to come. As 2013 draws to a close, we look back at the top five highlights of the year.

Swap Stories
We love hearing success stories from our swappers! From the fun to the practical, we have seen all kinds of swaps happen through Swapsity this year.

To share just a few examples:

• private chef services for yoga lessons (yum!)
• a chandelier for handmade gemstone bracelets
• Indian cooking for photography—this swap turned into a big dinner for five people!
• home painting for tax preparations
• a new Brita water filter for home-made jam
• bi-weekly massages for employees—as a health benefit—in exchange for bi-weekly office cleaning
• business consulting for acupuncture
  
  

  

Swaps come in all shapes and sizes but no matter how big or small they are about two people positively impacting each other’s lives.

Swapsity talks at TEDx
This year we had the opportunity to take the simple idea of barter to the TEDx stage. Our founder’s talk, The Exchange Economy: Value with Values, focused on the power of barter and presented her vision for the future of currency. Get the full talk and story here.

Brand New Logo and Website
We also unveiled our brand new logo—it better captures the spirit of our brand’s personality and vision—and a fresh new website. The new site makes swapping more effortless, has a clean interface and makes the online experience more intuitive.

Media Kudos
Barter is growing in popularity in Toronto and the Canadian media is certainly taking notice.

Since its inception, Swapsity has been covered in the media many times, however this year we got to see one of the most in-depth feature article from a financial perspective on the rise of barter. Toronto Life’s Money Issue featured a major story, “No Money, No Problem”, which included three pages of facts and successes stories about the New Bartering Economy in Toronto. In it, they asserted that we're on the "cusp of a new wave of alternative financial thinking." According to Toronto Life, the Barter Economy is driven by the "uncertainties of a cash economy," and many local success stories—like Swapsity—have emerged. Read it here.

Global News also covered our summer’s biggest swap, CBC did a radio interview with our founder in their “Big Idea” segment, and Canadian Press wrote a story—republished by Yahoo, MSN Money, Huffington and other publications—on post holiday swapping season.

It’s exciting for us to see swapping empowering more and more Canadians!

Swap Zone Success
Have you had a chance to attend one of our swap events? It’s been two and half years since we started organizing Toronto’s largest swap meets. Every time we host these treasure-hunting meets, the Swap Zone comes alive with hundreds of swappers beaming with smiles and thousands of items that need new homes. This year we had so much fun swapping at the Green Living Show and the Live Green Toronto Festival. Thanks for joining us!

And the impact of our swaps so far? To date, our wonderful swappers have amassed more than $200,000 in savings, recycled 30,000+ items and swapped over 25,000 things at the Swap Zone. Great job, folks! You can read more about the Swap Zone success in an article written by our founder for Collaborative Consumption.

A big thank you for our Swap Zone volunteers who make our events possible and our swappers for keeping the swapping spirit alive. We love you!

What were some of your best swap experiences in 2013? What do you hope to see happen in 2014?

Wishing you fantastic bartering in 2014!