Harried parents now have a new alternative to selling items their kids no longer want at a local consignment shop or on eBay. Swap.com, an online trade-in store, has added the option of a valet service that eliminates the chores associated with using Swap's do-it-yourself standard method.
The new service, which is available only for kids' items such as clothing, toys and media (like video games and DVDs), offers cataloging, photographing, listing and storing for items that parents wish to sell. The owners set prices, and listed items can be bought for cash or swapped for goods that another user has listed for sale.
Swap.com's valet service is not free. Users pay $1 per listing plus 20 percent of the sale price. If items don't sell, listers can pay to have their belongings shipped back to them, or they can let Swap.com donate or recycle them.
Some fees for the service have been reduced during the holidays. For instance, the company charges its valet service customers a fee to store items after 45 days. These fees run start at about $3 a month for 20 video games or DVDs. All storage fees have been waived until Jan. 1, 2013, so if you're coming up on the deadline, you won't be charged until next year. [SEE ALSO: How Shopaholics Can Become Swapaholics ]
Valet service users can request a $3 Swap.com box that comes with a UPS shipping label. They pay a flat rate of $9 to ship the box to Swap. After being processed at the Swap Logistics Center, the items will be posted for sale. When someone buys an item, Swap.com handles the shipping and pays the seller either through credit toward purchasing other items or through a payment to their PayPal account.