does anyone trade anymore???

is it just me or is there no one trading online anymore.it seems to me that everyone is just selling and buying.or is it i just dont have anything good to trade?

It seems to go in spurts. I have not done much trading in the last couple of months, but that was more about me then the opportunity. Just this last weekend I have 11 packages to mail. I see I do have one pin on your wants list so pm me if you want to work on a trade. You do have some really nice pins!!!

I have to say,since picpics changed it has not been as any to see matches/traders
i used to view peoples wants regularly ,now it's quite a hassle ,so I don't tend to bother
this my be one reason,another is, alot of traders were at WDW ROE event in September
and I for one don't have many good traders left, maybe that's why a lot of traders are buying up
fresh traders
Just checked out your traders and you have some good ones, I don't suppose I have anything
you would trade for rapunzel best friends???????
rose

I still enjoy trading but it seems hard to make trades at times. I will check out your wants.

pm sent doc

I'm seriously thinking about giving up trading. I've had pins never get to me, people taking weeks to send my pins or not sending them at all, stress. I'm just not enjoying it right now. I have one last trade I'm trying to finalise and that will be it for a while I think.

thanks for the replies everyone!!!! any pms sent will be replied to after i get home from work late tonight.

sorry to hear that i have had that frustration only once that someone took 2 weeks to send thats why i try to send out right away or if possible meet up

I'm finding trading harder now that the pinpics lists don't work. Yes I do manually go to pinpics and check trades/wants... but I don't know how many others do that now. I really would like to trade more, so you know guys... feel free to look through my traders.

Ive only traded twice in the last few months but I have very limited wants

I just send out tons of trade emails, should be in peoples inboxes tomorrow. I don't like the new pinpics site at all. People were happy to check their email inbox in the morning but the new site requires you to log into their site daily to see requests. No thanks.
Another issue with the overseas trading is the huge spike in shipping costs. It used to be like $3-$5 to ship to Europe, now it's $6-$9. And Euro traders have realy tightened up lately on their LE stuff. So they want more but it costs more to ship to them. Double whammy.
But I agree people now-a-days just want to buy and sell. Which is sad for those of you not near a park. We lucky ones still get to trade frequently in person at the parks and at DSF here in SoCal. Buying and selling is impersonal and you don't have to worry about losing a pin as much since paypal/ebay protection/rules are in place. But I'd rather trade.
I feel the majority of offers I get online for pin trading are increasingly lopsided though. So many offers for hidden mickey's or older park rack pins for HTF or low LE pins. I know some are newer people but some are just the same request every single day. I don't even open some peoples emails anymore. Someone from Florida, has DD in his name, that guy sends tons of crazy lopsided stuff everyday. Gets old and probably turns off many newer traders with the constant garbage.
But, we haven't had as many good pins as we have had in 2011/2012. 2013 has been a dry year with just spikes here and there. 2011/2012 we had good park releases, PODMs, etc. 2013 the park releases that are good are few and far between and the monthly series are awful. Those easel pins? and the shield surprise ones? WDI has really limited the D23 shopping days and pin releases. Seems they focused too much on D23 pin releases which kind of bombed other than the designer set, Art of Ariel and maybe La Luna. Poor offerings have kind of dried up the middle market. Hidden Mickey's are gobbled up so fast lately that even those are harder to find/trade. All that is left is DSF pins and a few highlights like the DLRP lockets, various Tangled pins, etc. I don't do Villains so all the villain pins to me were targeted at others.
I think less Tangled stuff may help bring some of the other collections back to the forefront. All anyone wants to do lately is talk Tangled, Ariel, or Grail. I feel like people try to label a pin right away as junk or double it's cost + up to instant grail. If it doesn't double in value it's hardly worth getting or trading. While I tend to agree, lots of junky pin designs lately, not every pin is a winner. Seems less are interested in the middle-of-the-road pins and just focus on grails. The one-uppers and elitests will drive the newer folks away. Which doesn't help anything.

Hmm, I tend to trade in spurts. I rarely send requests out or get any sent to me (but then again, my pinpics list isn't that up to date, oops!)

You can still log into the old pinpics site and send out trade requests that way (so people get them via email). in fact, I'm heading right now to do it!

But, for the pins I want, I find it a lot easier to just buy than trade. If I add up all the time I spend trying to negotiate trades, packing, post office time, etc., it comes out to be cheaper to buy than trade....which reminds me, I need to go put up a sales thread! LOL

markheardjr said:

I think less Tangled stuff may help bring some of the other collections back to the forefront. All anyone wants to do lately is talk Tangled, Ariel, or Grail. I feel like people try to label a pin right away as junk or double it's cost + up to instant grail. If it doesn't double in value it's hardly worth getting or trading. While I tend to agree, lots of junky pin designs lately, not every pin is a winner. Seems less are interested in the middle-of-the-road pins and just focus on grails. The one-uppers and elitests will drive the newer folks away. Which doesn't help anything.

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It's been building like this for awhile. It's either grails or nothing. I think I've made about 5 trades all year, and maybe 1 of those was through DPF. Usually, some good requests would come through but this year it's either uneven requests, or pins I know have been counterfeited, and when you look at their trades list they're all pins that have been counterfeited and so I'm hesitant to accept mail requests for them, unless I'm familiar with the trader. I did make one fabulous trade, which resulted in the completion of a 13 year grail quest, so this year hasn't been a complete waste. And yeah, since New Pinpics debut requests are far and few between. I think it's kicked out a lot of the regular traders who just got so frustrated and stopped, so the only people left are the "professionals" or people looking for something very specific (which most of us aren't going to have).

I find it very difficult to set up trades, but I always assumed it is because my collection is so limited since I collect only Jessica, not to mention I don't have very good traders! I did make a great trade with Suzziesue a few weeks ago, and actually just had a trade request on pinpics today that I think I will do!

I just send out three lbe last week with traders. I have had a good mix of hard to find pins and easier pins that I've traded for. I don't trade much in the parks so online is my only way to go.

I have definitely not perfected the art of obtaining good pins for trade. I'm beginning to lean more towards just buying the pins I want to begin with. I enjoy trading but since I don't live near the resorts that means I have to pay a premium for pins to trade. If I have to pay a premium anyway might as well directly buy the pins I want in the first place. Also, I find I get responses to my trade requests on pinpics about 1% of the time. When I go to WDW I'll see if I can pick up some good LEs for trade and perhaps with time I can build up a better trading selection. I imagine my interests may change and i'll be willing to trade out some of the "good" pins I'm not willing to trade now.

A lot of people are trading on facebook groups now....

BugCatcherJenna said:

A lot of people are trading on facebook groups now....

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I only know about one of these groups...I would love to join some more!

i have been having trouble getting my international packages shipped on time, and it has seriously reduced my trading all around. Depressing when i have to tell someone over and over again, "sorry, didnt get to the post office yet."

Pinpics not being linked here has not messed with my trading much on here, I just hylight the pinpics name and click over to pinpics then search it... however, it is harder than it used to be with the new system and I still find myself falling back on the old site. I like many of the new features of pinpics, but the old standby's we use daily being gone or changed has been a hard adjustment... It HAS effected many traders online.

be cautious with the FB pin groups. There are a few that I do not trust. not the whole group, but to many stories of multiple individuals who dont follow through. Some of the groups are good about banning those types, others are RUN by those types.

I love trading! but the new PinPics has me very frustrated and I haven't been sending out requests. The last time I sent out any requests, I'm not even sure they went out. I haven't gotten any requests in quite a while.

I still trade, but not many people ask me.

I think I'll just have to list my pins manually in a trading topic or something, or directly link to the lists. Trading really has slowed down recently.

Still trade whenever the opportunity presents. Unfortunately we do not have any matches, but I hope we have the opportunity sometime in the near future!

I'm glad to read that I'm not the only one with trades drying up. I chalked it up to the kids going back to school, as that always seems to be a slow time each year. But I agree with what a lot have said above.

The new PinPics has ruined it for a lot of people. The site is too frustrating and no one there seems to care. I haven't seen any progress since the roll out and they seem to be shooting for the elite-ists (which is really funny, as the few TAs I receive on there, are for the most part, even worse than the ones I receive via the old way, emails). Forget their staff. Rude! I don't know about the owners, all I hear is excuses. Can't run a business if you're not at the helm.

I also add bad behavior to the lack of trading. So many are absolutely rude any more, it's not funny. What is with people?

Watch out for the FB pages. I belong to a few, but that arena is a horse market. I just joined a few months back and instead of enjoying the pages, they just depressed me even more. Does anyone even collect at all??? Or is it just wheeling and dealing to see who can make more money?? And cliquish, whew, you thought it was bad on the message boards!

Anyway, I'll keep plugging along with what has worked for me all these years.

In one positive note, as discussed in another thread, I have obtained more of my very old, holy grails this year, than any other. So, while all this crumbling down around our pin lanyards is happening to our hobby, I have had the luck of purchasing several collections at great prices to keep my spirits up and adding my most desired pins to my collection.