Don't be crushed by the credit crunch, advises Fiona McCann, who finds the swap shop concept alive and well on the internet and on the streets
CREDIT CRUNCH. It may sound like a breakfast cereal, but it means tough times ahead, not the kind of belt-tightening induced by Special K consumption.
So what do we do about the cash-flow issues we thought we had consigned to bedside stories for our grandchildren. Is there a way to keep consuming without being consumed by debt?
Canny shoppers are already finding ways to have their retail cake and eat it. Various websites are offering plenty of options to acquire goods without a penny changing hands. And the swap shop is making a huge comeback in these leaner times.
Monday saw the launch in Dublin of a new weekly event, Swap Idol, in the city-centre bar and restaurant Shebeen Chic, which itself was completely kitted out using recycled material and sundry items found in skips and auctions.
The owners of Shebeen Chic are inviting anyone with old clothes, books or records - "anything you can carry in" - to swap for those left in by others.
On my visit, shirts and skirts were hanging from the rafters, ties were draped over lampshades and handbags hung on the backs of chairs, to which I added a bag full of cast-offs that garnered me the equivalent number of plastic tokens. Each token was swappable for any item I saw, so my salmon-pink summer dress - not the colour for a pale complexion - was quickly replaced by a snuggly winter hat.
If, as in my case, there's nothing that immediately takes your fancy, you can hang on to your tokens and redeem them on any subsequent visit. It's a chance to revamp your wardrobe in cash-strapped times, without any money changing hands, according to Wendy Doyle, one of the creative team behind Shebeen Chic.
"It's something new, it's something different and it doesn't cost anybody anything," she says. "With the credit crunch, it's somewhere you can go and have a laugh and you might pick up something you'll wear out on Saturday night."
If it doesn't work for you, you can always bring it back next week, safe in the knowledge that there'll be other outfits to choose from, and that anything that fails to find a home with Shebeen Chic customers will find one across the road at Oxfam. Swap Idol will take place at Shebeen Chic on South Great George's Street in Dublin every Saturday from noon until 4pm from this weekend.
MEANWHILE, IN CYBERSPACE, eBay is promoting a new concept, Shopping Neutral, where people can offset their on-site spending by selling other items online to raise money for their purchases. Eamonn Galvin, head of product at eBay Ireland, says Shop Neutral means people don't have to put their hands in their pockets to pay for purchases, which they fund using goods they sell.
This is currently the fastest-growing sector on eBay, says Galvin, with users able to accumulate enough money in their online accounts to fund their spending. eBay says the average Irish household contains as much as €4,400 worth of unwanted goods that could be sold on the site to fund other purchases.
He said there are more than 2,000 neutral shoppers on eBay.ie as of the end of July. This is based on an analysis of over 3.5 million online transactions carried out by buyers and sellers on eBay.ie, across 13,000 categories. These 2,000-plus shoppers are making sales that cover at least 75 per cent of their purchases, a figure that eBay believes is set to grow even more in the run-up to Christmas.
eBay is not the only website where shoppers are finding ways to reduce their spending without stopping shopping. Jumbletown (www.jumbletown.ie) is an Irish site that allows people to place ads for goods they either need or want to get rid of. This is known as "lifecycling".
"Jumbletown is a bit like eBay in that items change hands, but all of the items on Jumbletown are free and the service is also free," explains Desmond Fitzgibbon, who set up the site with his brother David. "When the bad news of the recession started coming in and hitting home about two months ago, we had a dramatic surge on the website."
A quick look on Jumbletown reveals all manner of items available for free. They include a Dell laptop, a mahogany table, a three-piece suite and several washing machines. According to Fitzgibbon, first-time buyers with crippling mortgages have used Jumbletown to furnish their entire homes.
Other sites for the thriftily minded include Gumtree.ie - a free-listing site that allows people to advertise items for sale as well as those they'll give away for free - and Dublinwaste.ie, whose listings range from microwaves and, curiously enough, used Christmas cards, proving that there might well be a market for everything.
It's not just happening online, however. Out in the real world, there are money-saving options for those reluctant to give up the shopping high, but eager to cut down on their financial outlay. Not only do charity shops such as Oxfam and Barnardos offer second-hand clothing and household items for bargain-hunting shoppers, but swap shops are experiencing an upswing in custom as the economy swings in the other direction.
TAKE THE STOCKXCHANGE in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin a clothing swap shop which offers a space for people to sell their unwanted designer clothing, while fashionistas get to purchase some high-end outfits for about one third of their original price.
"There are women who use the shop to sell their clothes," says owner Jacqueline O'Keeffe. "They would tend to be ladies who lunch and can't be seen in the same outfit more than once. They spend a lot of money on their clothes, and use the shop to offload."
None of the clothes the shop sells are more than two years old, allowing style-lovers to rotate their wardrobe contents without dating their look. During the 1980s it was a very strong business. In the last six months O'Keeffe has seen an increase in women selling their clothes, and new customers, particularly younger ones, coming to buy.
The swap-shop concept has long appealed to an older clientele, used to maximising their cash. "The women who are 30 and over will have experienced harder times before . . . They realise the value of money," says O'Keeffe. With credit crunching across the globe, orphaned Celtic Tiger cubs are learning fast.
MONEY MATTERS CARS, CASH AND CONVENIENCE
Dubliner Larry McEvoyhad a Mitsubishi Pajero that was costing him serious money to maintain with the credit crunch and rising fuel prices. He was eager to downsize to a less money-guzzling alternative, but wanted to minimise the hassle of having to sell the jeep and then spend time finding an alternative. A friend had told him about Gumtree.ie, so he placed an ad offering to swap his Pajero for a smaller car from the same year.
A Punto owner was delighted at the prospect of the upgrade. The exchange was simple and no cash changed hands. It was a straight swap.
Orla, from the Cavan/Meath border, found that if she went to Dublin or Belfast to shop it wasn't worth her while bringing the clothes back a week later if she wanted to change them. Over time she was left with clothes she didn't wear - some of which she paid good money for.
So she decided to sell them on eBay. She set up a Paypal account to facilitate her eBay transactions. This allowed her to buy goods online using the money in this account without having to physically withdraw cash. It helps keep her spending in check and she now sells more on eBay than she buys.
Dawn Timmonsfrom Dublin found herself in the enviable position of finally being able to purchase furniture she had wanted for her home, but she didn't know how to get rid of her old two-seater couch.
To save the cost of a skip or a removal van, she put an ad on the free trade website www.dublinwaste.ie, offering the couch to anyone willing to come pick it up. She got a call within three hours from someone who came in a van and picked it up.
The transaction was so simple and cost-effective that Timmons is sorry she didn't have such a solution to reducing costs when she originally bought her house.
