During our invitation only period, we are controlling access to our site for the purpose of beta testing. You will not be able to browse through our site or keyword search without first registering. If you would like to be invited to use our site, please click the registration button on our home page.

While you have to post at least one item you HAVE and may want to trade, the more HAVES you post, the more offers you are likely to receive. Posting doesn't commit you to anything.

You do not have to identify a specific item you WANT to start trading, but unless you post a WANT and link it to a HAVE, the BarterQuest Matching engine cannot do its job by automatically matching you with users who HAVE what you WANT and WANT what you HAVE. If you are uncertain as to what you may WANT in return for an item you HAVE, we suggest that you describe your WANTS in more general terms or post several alternatives. The more WANTS you post, the more likely that BarterQuest will automatically provide you with trading alternatives that match your trading preferences. And unless you post WANTS, other users will have no guidance as to what items may be of interest to you. Posting a WANT doesn't cost you anything and doesn't commit you to anything.

Yes. The BarterQuest Matching engine is intended only to make your trading easier. Think of it as a tool to help you quickly navigate many trading alternatives to find the ones that match both your HAVE and your WANT. You can always make an offer to trade with another user if you have identified an item they HAVE as one that you would like. You can browse through the site and use keywords to Search for the HAVES and WANTS of other users, make offers, and enter into trades.

You can make multiple offers involving the same item. In fact, we encourage you to make as many offers as make sense to you as possible trades. The more offers you make, the more likely you will successfully trade. An offer doesn't cost you anything and doesn't commit you to anything.

You can change your offer by changing the item that you are offering to trade or by adding items to your offer. You can use Q&A to determine why your offer was declined and negotiate with you potential trading partner. Or you can seek the item you want with a different trading partner. Or you can simply let some time pass and try again (after all, people change their minds).

A trade consists of an offer, the Acceptance of the offer, and a Confirmation of the trade by the user who first made the offer. You are not committed to a trade that you initiated until you have Confirmed the trade.

When you Accept an offer you have committed yourself to the trade, pending only the Confirmation of the trade by your trading partner. Your item remains exclusively available for the trade for the greater of 72 hours or until the trade has been Confirmed.

If, instead of Confirming the trade, your potential trading partner Accepts another offer, your Acceptance will convert to an outstanding offer for your original trade. This is to allow for the possibility that the other trade will not be Confirmed. In this case both users automatically continue as parties to an active trade, your outstanding offer can be Accepted, and you can then Confirm your original trade.

Through Q&A you can ask questions at any time about an item that is available for trade. When answered, both your questions and their answers will become public unless you have opted for private communications. This is to assure that all users have the same information about a trading opportunity and one or the other user is not advantaged or disadvantaged because of special knowledge not known to all. The more perfect the information, the more rational the market. Nevertheless, you can decide to communicate privately, and certain communications should by their nature be private, such as questions and answers that relate directly to the profile of other users, their references (particularly in the case of trades involving services or real estate), and to shipping or delivery.

From your perspective as a trader the difference is not very significant between a two party trade and a MultiParty trade between you and two or more trading partners. The BarterQuest Matching engine facilitates multi-party trades in order to increase both the probability and quality of attractive trading alternatives. The most significant differences are that (1) in a MultiParty trade you will receive the item you want from one trading partner and send your item to another (remember, a multi-party trade consists of several users who "close a loop," that is, I have what you want, you have what another user wants, and that user has what I want), and (2) a MultiParty trade is essentially an "as is" opportunity to Accept an exchange of items (the Confirmation of a MultiParty trade requires that all of the parties Accept within the same 72 hour period).

You can and should contact your trading partner directly. At the same time, you should communicate your problem to BarterQuest so that we can determine whether your trading partner has violated our Terms of Use and should be sanctioned. Finally, you should detail any negative trading experience in your Feedback on the trade.

Absolutely. First and foremost, the HAVES and WANTS of users will be constantly changing and new trading opportunities will become available. As importantly, you must update the availability of each item that you HAVE to trade or the item will be removed from your post. And items that have been updated more recently will be more attractive to potential trading partners, who will have that much greater confidence that your item continues to be "in play."

Yes. A description of prohibited items can be found in our Terms of Use, both explicitly and by general description. Please use your common sense.

Only when a trade for goods has been Confirmed and you have committed to a trade will you be charged the applicable fees. The fees are modest and will vary with your estimate of the value of the item you are trading. As specifically described on the site, estimates will be within a broad range of value and are used only for the calculation of your fees. When you post services or the use of real estate as the items you HAVE to trade, a listing fee will be charged that will vary with the duration of your listing. All trading is free in our invitation only period. If you complete a trade during this period, all your trading activity in the year following our public launch will be free.