Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Swap Drama - Observations

Hello Sweet Goodness Swappers! It's been a long time since I've posted here as the other Goodness Girls have been keeping up the site. Our last swap, Sparkling Winter White, has brought some things to our attention that need to be addressed. Recently we heard that some swappers thought we chose our participants poorly. This is the first time we've heard this complaint. Out of our 50 participants we had 44 successful swaps and 6 with issues. 4 of these 6 we hope will be resolved soon.

Participation Selection:

We like to have as many participants in our swaps as possible. However, we usually limit each swap to the first 50 sign ups as it becomes very difficult to deal with the amount of email and follow up if the number is larger. Plus a smaller group gives us an opportunity to give more personalized assistance when needed.

For most swaps we allow in any one who would like to join. Some swaps in the past have been limited to those who have successfully swapped with us before or those who are recommended by our previous swappers or known friends.

Those people who have signed up for swaps and HAVE NOT completed them are not invited back. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as the person contacting both us and their partner with their extenuating circumstances or someone dropping out early and our ability to fill their spot in time. We understand that things come up and don't hold this against people but we do tend to not reinvite those who in the past haven't even bothered to contact their partners or send any packages.

Screening Process:

We have started using a questionnaire that needs to be filled out in order to sign up for the swap. This helps us to not only get to know our swappers but to match up partners with similar interests.

We keep a list of those who have swapped with us in the past and use this to try to insure no one gets the same partner they have had in the past to add variety to the swaps.

Other than this we take everyone into consideration and ASSUME they will send a complete and quality swap. We want to give everyone a chance to join in and have fun.


Swapping always involves a bit of risk though all of our swaps have a very high success rate and we have a wonderful core of returning swappers. We do our best to solve all swap issues and assist where needed. We also would like to remind everyone that we do for fun as we enjoy swapping with our creative folks out there and coming up with fun and new swap themes.

We encourage your feedback and thoughts. As we change our swap mailbox with each swap your general comments and feedback can be sent to goodnessshop@gmail.com.

Thank you for continuing to swap with us. Spring swap details coming soon!

Fondly ~ Rebecca www.thriftygoodness.blogspot.com