Saturday, August 16, 2014
Maryland Stockpile Exchange was a huge success
Sorry I don't have pictures cause I was having way toooo fun with my new couponing friends :-) The Stockpile exchange was a HUGE success. Every nook and cranny of my car was jammed packed with trades. It was amazing and I can't wait until the next one in October :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What a fantastic idea! I used to trade excess items by mail, but by the time I paid postage to ship a box to someone, I could have just gone shopping for the stuff on sale here. Also, I often traded full sized items and got travel sized items in return, so I just gave it up. How did you find the FB group?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I was invited to this FB page: I got a coupon for the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virgnia)
Deletehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/IGOTACOUPONFORTHATDMV/
From there I got invited to Maryland Stockpile Exchange: https://www.facebook.com/groups/660869774005186/
The majority of the people live in upper Prince Georges County/ Lower Anne Arundel county in Maryland. The stockpile exchange group is run by 2 very very nice gals who just started couponing about 6 months ago.....actually most of the people on the list just started couponing.
Upside:
*The variety. Most shop at Shoprite or the commissary so they get different deals than I would from shopping at Harris Teeters. So for instance most had Zest Body Wash UFT because it was a freebie at Shoprite. I did not get the deal plus it was an item I wanted to try so I think I ended up with 15 Zest Body Washes. One gal put an UFT for "Johnnie Cake" pancake syrup from the commissary. Just try something new I traded for one. Another gal had Similasan stye eye drops UFT. They are usually a freebie or MM but I had used all of mine and it just so happened my eyes were bothering me so I traded for some.
* Newbies - they have a lot of enthusiam which is very contagious
* I am not kidding when I say every nook and cranny of my car was packed with trades. I had done these before in Florida so I knew the power of one stop shopping in a stockpile exchange.
Downsides:
* I had 2 people who wanted outlandish one sided trades in their favor. I did not trade with them. At the event yesterday I found no one else did either.
* I also had 1 person cancel and no show at the event. She ended up texting me at the event that she wanted to meet sometime this week after work. I told her I lived in Virgina and would not be driving to Maryland. She had been difficult all along so I did not feel bad when I opened up her orange bag and traded all the things I had for her....those items went like hot cakes.
* The drive. It took me 45 minutes to get there and 90 minutes to get home. But I knew going in it was going to be an all day affair so it did not bother me. I certainly did not have to stay for lunch and tax free shopping but I did and enjoyed meeting new couponing geeks. The next one is being planned for October so even though the drive is long they exchanges dont happen that often so it is definitely something you can plan around.
*Newbies- while newbies are a positive they are also a downside. They dont have experience trading nor do they have a stockpile of items you might want. However as good will I would trade with them. They were sooooo excited for the trade....so very exited. However because of their inexperience they lack ettiquette and knowledge of trades their trade could be labor intensive walking them through everything. But in the end the newbies I traded with ended up being a positive experience for both.
Wow! You would think that people who came to exchange and realized that people weren't going to trade with them would change there tune but that is a little strange. I don't think that I would make the drive out there to do it currently but I probably would have when I first started couponing because I always had a bunch of things that we didn't use. I don't get as many things now that we aren't going to use so I am hoping to just keep the budget down by not shopping but it is really fun to get back into the excitement for couponing!!!
ReplyDelete