BOSTON — Trade Whitney for Britney, or Cream for Korn.
A new Internet company hopes to make it easier for people to get rid of CDs they no longer want and get hold of used CDs that they do.
Swapit.com may lack the cozy atmosphere of a used CD shop, but its founders say the site makes up for this in selection and in more-liberal policies for consumers who want to dump old discs.
" 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' is really true," said Kevin Wells, one of the co-founders of Swapit.com in Maynard, Mass.
Swapit.com, which opened in mid-April, gives "credit" to customers for "swapping in" any one of 300,000 titles. To make that easy, the company sends would-be customers postage-paid boxes that hold as many as 12 discs.
The credit, called Swapit bucks, can be used to purchase any of the 50,000 discs the site has in stock. There is a $2 fee per disc, plus shipping.
The company receives about 1,000 "new" used discs each day, Wells said. All are tested for quality before they are sent to a distribution warehouse in Chicago.
Discs that don't pass the test are not put up for sale.
Another Web site, Half.com, also caters to people with changing tastes in entertainment. The Philadelphia-based company allows owners of unwanted CDs — as well as books, movies and video games — to set their own sales price, as long as it's less than half the retail price. The site then links the buyers and sellers.
The system has proved so successful that Half.com announced last week it was merging with Internet auction site eBay.
Swapit.com says nearly all the discs the company has received were popular at one time. The most frequently "swapped in" CD so far has been Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill."
Wells said that if Swapit.com receives too many CDs of any one title, it will try to do something creative with them. "We'll have a big bonfire or something," he said.
For some music lovers, the online shopping saves a trip to a used store to look for bargains.
"I'm always going to the used CD markets," British audiophile Richard Derbyshire of London said as he browsed in a Boston-area store.
He has not tried CD shopping online yet, but he's interested. "I resent paying $30 for a (new) CD," he said.
Others say combing through the dusty bins of discs is half the fun.
"I love going out and looking for discs," said Mandy Vitta of Boston, who was searching for a Grateful Dead disc at CD Spins in Boston.
Regional CD stores say they're not threatened by the Internet CD trading sites. In fact, the Internet sites can help them try to sell rare or overstocked used discs, said Mark Ostrowski, a supervisor at Planet Records in Cambridge.
Besides, he added, shoppers seem to like the personal interaction and advice they can get in brick-and-mortar stores that's not available in cyberspace, he said.
And unlike shopping online, which can often take several days to process, shopping in a used CD shop offers instant gratification, Ostrowski said.