About PaddleSwap

This site is the direct result of a fellow paddler's frustrations with surfing eBay, Craigslist, and the various paddling forums trying to list/find used paddling boats/gear. It might seem counterproductive to introduce yet another web site for listing used gear, but it is my hope that PaddleSwap solves more problems than it creates, while still giving people the flexibility to easily share the information they input into PaddleSwap wherever they wish on the web.

PaddleSwap is a new web site allowing paddlers to swap used boats/gear more efficiently than the numerous scattered forums that exist across the web. To do that, PaddleSwap uses Google maps to display listing locations anywhere you choose, not just by state or larger cities. Locations are entered via a US zip code, or point-n-click your location (lat/lon location) via an interactive map. Of course, listing on PaddleSwap is preferred, but with every keyword or geographic search, PaddleSwap will also display as many likely matches to listings found on other popular websites.

Another unique feature of PaddleSwap not found elsewhere is the ability to create an "alert", which is a set of criteria (ex. Price, Make, general location radius, etc.) and whenever a listing is posted matching your criteria, you receive an email or text message alerting you to that listing or group of listings. This frees up paddlers from having to hover over various forums looking for listings or post "Wanted" listings on forums. Why should any paddler miss a listing because you were out paddling? (this assumes you have cell phone coverage, of course — I wish I could claim that viewing PaddleSwap daily somehow turned trees into cell-phone relay stations, thus boosted your coverage, but alas, it does not)

For those that have a larger inventory of boats, PaddleSwap offers various features to help manage those listings. A single url/link can be used to refer to all your listings on PaddleSwap, and those users that own a web site, with a little snip of HTML code, a data feed of all current listings can be displayed on your existing web page. Listings on your page are automatically updated to include all of your active PaddleSwap listings.

Various other features exist to help search with various criteria, post comments, advertise certain listings, and sift listings according to likely uses such as Racing, Fishing, Touring, Recreational, etc.

Accounts are required to create a listing or an alert, but sign-up is FREE.

To than end, I encourage anyone who has ideas or suggestions to make PaddleSwap better, to shoot me (Kevin Turner) an email at feedback@paddleswap.com. I have a lot of additional ideas I personally think would be great, but only want to spend time on them or others if people find PaddleSwap useful. Showing your support is as easy as signing up. Additionally, since this web site is brand spankin new, I would encourage anyone who finds what they believe to be a bug, to submit it to support@paddleswap.com as well.

— Kevin Turner, Owner

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FAQ

Here are a few common questions about PaddleSwap and their answers:

Selling

1. Do you charge to list a boat?
   I believe it should always be free for the casual user to post a listing which is why the free account allows a user to list up to 5 active, for-sale boats at the same time. However, for more than that, a Pro Account is required. For example, if you have 5 boats for sale using your free account, and you mark one as 'sold' or 'decided not to sell', this reduces your for-sale count down to 4. You can freely list one more boat to bring the number back to 5. If you wish to list another boat on top of that, you would have to register for a paid, Pro Account.
2. Why doesn't PaddleSwap manage the sale like, say, Ebay?
   Honestly, we just feel that some things are best traded in person, where you can touch, talk, and inspect something before purchasing. This is especially true of used items. Now you might decide to buy the item sight unseen, but that's your choice. This ability to inspect before buying is one of the main reasons we've offered so many features to allow people to list/search geographically.
3. Why can't I adjust the price of an existing listing higher than my original price?
   We don't allow you to adjust the price of a listing higher than the originally listed price primarily because our featured listing fee is based as a percentage of the list price of any listing, and we wanted to avoid the scenario where someone intentionally lists at a low price, gains featured status, and turns right around to raise the price back to a normal amount. While we could have introduced logic to only restrict featured listings, we felt that this complexity was likely overkill since it is our belief that most people will, under normal circumstances, never raise the price of a listing, only lower it. If you feel that you are an exception, email support@paddleswap.com and plead your case.
4. I am listing a boat that I don't see a manufacturer for, what should I do?
   Email us at support@paddleswap.com and let us know which Make you would like to add. In the meantime, you can choose "Other" as the Make and when the new Make is added to the system, you can update your listing.
5. If I want to link to a listing, what is the url or address for a particular listing?
   The address you see in your browser's address/location field is specific to that listing. You can be assured that anyone following that link will always be directed to that listing, today and forever, or maybe just a really really long time.
6. Can I get a link or url that points to all my for-sale listings?
   Yes! Log in, and under the "Your Listings" category on the left, you'll see a link at the bottom of the Currenly For Sale list called "Share Listings". Clicking that link takes you to a page that contains ways to share data. The first tab (Share Url) contains the url that you can use to link to all your listings. You can paste or post that url/link into any other forum, email, or web page to provide a quick link back to all your listings.

Email

1. If an email address is required to register, is it kept private?
   Yes. People may send you email via PaddleSwap but your actual email address is always kept private. Review our Privacy Policy if you have any questions about privacy.
2. How does an email, or text message alert work?
   An alert is simply an advanced search that is run on a daily basis, finding any newly added listings that match the alert's search parameters. If the search matches the newly added item, an email, or text message is sent to you. Nothing is sent if there were no matches. There may also be fees associated with receiving text messages, of which PaddleSwap is not held liable for, so be aware of any costs you might incure with the use of text message alerts.

Misc.

1. Do I have to register for an account to search listings?
   No. Registering is only required if you are selling an item. However, registering for an account does allow you to take advantage of some cool features, such as email alerts, remembering your geographic location, and being able to post comments.
2. Why won't the keyword search find listings with keywords I entered?
   The most likely reason is that you are trying to either search for a word less than four letters in length, or searching using a common English word. MySQL, which is the backend database for PaddleSwap restricts searches in this manner by default so that the indexing/searching of all the text is faster. Lifting this restriction might be in a future update to PaddleSwap but for now it is not critical enough to warrant the time investment to change the behavior.
3. Can I advertise on PaddleSwap?
   At the moment, the only advertising allowed is through Google AdWords. I'm not opposed to allowing direct advertising on the site in the future, but haven't quite worked out how I would like to structure that.