1. Amanda (bookgirl1967)  How do I sell this gorgeous dress to potential bidders?" All these questions all floating around in my head at a hundred miles a minute... 2520 was the final bid and I was in shock that MY beautiful dress received that many credits. [read more here...]
	2. Angela (Loucretia) I have been a Coach purse lover all my life. I have a number of Coach purses and had never really considered a Dooney and Bourke purse until the one offered here. And for the credits I got for 2 pairs of boy's pajamas, I was able to acquire this incredible D&B purse. [read more here...]
	3. Angie G. (AngiePangie) In this economy, I find people are in need of a site such as Listia. It is fun and gives one a light reprieve from the woes of the nations financial situation. [read more here...]
	4. Frank (Lordstorm37) I find this site a great way in communication and trading with people all over the world. It'a also an awesome way in getting rid of stuff you don't need. This site is extremely relaxing and enjoyable. [read more here...]
	5. June (haleya27) I started Listia because I was always seeing people on Facebook that was announcing that they won something for free. I am addicted to Listia and everyone has things to get rid of and should try this out.  [read more here...]
	6. Lea (haleya27) I receive a package in the mail almost everyday. My husband is so astonished on what I've been doing and how I have been receiving stuff for free. I'm a certified Listia addict. [read more here...]
	7. Lynn (lynnscherzinger) I get the opportunity to make things and people really actually like them! I get tons of compliments and I have been able to start my postage stamp collecting again! So, now I no longer wonder what to do with my days... I'm on Listia!  [read more here...]
	8. Michele (joriebelle) I've been a member of Listia for a year now and it has been such a positive experience. I list children's clothes; I have 5 kids of my own and am trying to unclutter my house! I just wanted to thank the owners/moderators here at Listia for keeping the selling climate so positive here. [read more here...]
	9. Rhonda (RhondaReneeChase) Once I started to understand the premise of the site I fell in love. [read more here...]
	10. Rhonda (rhondachristinejohnson) I joined Listia with the mindset of getting rid of a bunch of clutter and maybe getting some items for my upcoming vow renewal ceremony. I had no idea that I would find and win the most beautiful wedding gown ever!! [read more here...]
	11. Robert (raburruss) My first win on Listia was for an ergonomic mouse made by 3M. It turns out it retails for $45. I decided to list it on E-bay and sold it within 2 days for $33. [read more here...]
	12. Siew Ho (kayarich) I am a stay at home mom and am always in need of baby items. I got pair of brand new Robeez baby shoes for 3333 (worth US$25!). I even found some childproofing items like locks, table bumpers and toys! Bringing up a baby isn't so "expensive" after all. [read more here...]
	13. Thomas (Thomas162) Listia is an awesome website to get my hands on some video games instead of paying $59 for each game. And once I'm done playing those, I could just list them back on Listia for credits to use for something else! [read more here...]
	14. Wanda (wss1965) I am on it everyday either bidding or listing items for someone else to enjoy. The necklace I am wearing in this picture I won here on Listia for my wedding. [read more here...]

Do you have an “all-star” testimonial you want to share with us on Listia? Do you want to be a part of our bi-weekly newsletter? Submit your story along with an awesome picture of yourself to contests@listia.com and you could be featured next!

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We realize not all items benefit from multiple beauty shots--e.g., someone trying to win a book may not care to see it from all possible angles--so we also dissected our photo-per-listing counts into a few of our top categories:

The above shows the most common number of photos is still one (1), even across different types of items.

Now, here’s the interesting twist. If we compare the number of photos per listing with buyer activity (bids placed and credits spent), the numbers trend very differently. This chart shows how final credit amounts increase in listings with more photos:

And this chart shows how the number of bids placed is higher in listings that include more photos:

Pretty neat, eh? It’s cool to see how a few (or many) extra photos might motivate buyers to bid on your items. Even books, a category we thought didn’t need too many photos, benefited from additional pictures.

IN CONCLUSION: Next time you list an item, show as much of it as you can. Don’t stop at one picture if you want to get the most credits and bids possible. Every additional photo gives you an edge, so keep uploading and optimizing your listings!

Cheers, and happy trading!

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As a ritual for introducing all of our new employees, we would like to share 5 facts about Tae:

1. He was born and raised in the Bay Area (mostly South Bay). All four homes were within 10 miles from where he lives now.
2. His hobbies includes fast cars, playing acoustic guitar, his two daughters, and his newest “obsession” of tending to his 12 baby fruit trees in his backyard.
3. He’s fluent in English and Klingon (for the Star Trek fans).
4. His favorite food is Thai but he’ll try most edible things that won’t kill him.
5. He was once an extra in a James Bond movie and also at a Tonight Show taping.

If you're interested in job opportunities with us, visit more details here: www.listia.com/jobs

Leave a comment for Tae and welcome him to the Listia community!

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The newest addition to our mobile family just hit the Android Market! Now all our users with Android OS phones will be able to enjoy Listia on the go. The app lets you:

• List any item directly from your phone
• Search, browse, and discover listings
• Keep tabs on items in your watch list
• Review seller profiles before you buy
• Place bids and win the things you want!
• Find listings close to you in over 3,000 cities

Additional Android features are in the works, so stay tuned for future updates.

DOWNLOAD THE APP HERE 

Win some great Android OS devices from us!

• Latte ICE Smart 8 GB Smart Media Tablet
• ASUS Eee Pad Transformer 10.1-Inch Tablet

And check out some of the buzz about our launch here:

• Pando Daily: Listia Reaches 1 Million Users, Launches Android App
• Phandroid: List, Bid and Exchange Items All for Free
• Android Central: Trade Your Old Stuff for New Stuff

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The holidays are a wonderful time of year, but can leave us feeling strapped for cash once the merriment is over. Which is why January is the perfect time to trade your unwanted stuff on Listia. You can trade away gifts you didn't particularly care for to get items that Santa missed on your wishlist. Or trade away extra stuff in your house to get those practical things you need, just to give your wallet a nice breather.

To help everyone kick off their 2012 trades, we're running listing promos for ten full days. Check out our calendar of categories below, and click here to list an item. 

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In the spirit of our new Charity Campaigns, everyone in the office has volunteered to turn some of their unwanted items into donations for charity. All proceeds of these auctions will be donated to the organizations listed below, check them out and bid for a great cause!

Ngan is giving away some cool jams: Six CDs for Toys for Tots:

Kevin giving away the entire Clingfire Trilogy for the Nature Conservancy:

Big Gee is giving away a super cute Thomas the Tank Toy and a fun Nintendo Gameboy and Wii Game Bundle for The American Cancer Society: 

James is giving away a Deluxe 12-Game Wooden Chest for Toys for Tots:

Shane is giving away several prized Magic the Gathering Zombiesfor The Ronald McDonald House:

Rosie is giving away a Korean Drama DVD Box Set (tear-jerker with subtitles) for the Ronald McDonald House:

CB is giving away two Firetruck Boy's 2-Piece Sets for The American Red Cross:

Little Gee is giving away a festive Holiday Starbucks Mug for The American Red Cross:

You can turn your own items into donations for charity, or transform credits you already have into charitable stars. DONATE TODAY and help us help others.

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The holidays are quickly approaching and it’s a great time to think of those in need. We know it can be difficult to be charitable while our holiday wallets are stretched thin, so we created an easy way for Listians to make dollar donations to charity without spending money.

From now until December 31, you can use your Listia credits to purchase special gift stars for any of our five holiday charities. You can buy stars with credits you already have, or give away your unwanted stuff to benefit a great cause. For every five stars gifted to a charity, Listia will donate one dollar to that organization.

Our five special holiday charities are:

• The American Red Cross
• The American Cancer Society
• The Ronald McDonald House Charities
• The Nature Conservancy
• Toys for Tots

Help us reach our goal of $1,000 for each charity before the end of the month! Together we can show support for these wonderful charities who strive to make our world a safer, cleaner, healthier and more hopeful place.

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We're excited to introduce a new feature to Listia: Goals. Goals showcase various tasks you can do around our site to earn bonus credits, XP points, and/or badges. A user can find their goals on the top section of your home page (below "My Activity") or in the Goals page.

Some goals are promotional and will come and go with time, while others are given to users because of their progress as a Listia user. For example, when we offer a listing promotion, you will find that information in Goals. When you click on a goal, you will be able to read the requirements and rewards for completing that goal. The below screen shot images are examples of a promotional goal we are currently offering to our users.

We will be offering more goals as time goes on, so be sure to check back with us!

What goals do you want to see on Listia?

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As a ritual for introducing all of our new employees, we would like to share 5 facts about Amir:

1. He grew up in Minnesota
2. Aside from English, he is also fluent in Hebrew
3. His favorite hobby is photography
4. He loves hamburgers and pizza (but can't determine which one is his ultimate favorite)
5. He loves the snow, but generally frown upon cold weather

If you're interested in job opportunities with us, visit more details here: www.listia.com/jobs

Leave a comment for Amir and welcome him to the Listia community!

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It's been getting cold outside, but we've been in the office burning the midnight oil trying to make Listia better and better.  Today we're proud to show off our new search page!  There are a couple big changes that we wanted to tell you about so read on ... or at least look at the pictures =)

Just want to see it? Go here!

Merged Search & Explore

Depending on how you use Listia you may have spent all your time on the search results page or the explore page.  We've consolidated the 2 into one page with 2 different ways to view the results, list and gallery mode.  We realized our explore page needed a little bit of work so we hope you like the update.  At the same time we gave search a nice refreshing facelift that should make it easier to look for cool stuff.  With this update you can pick whichever viewing mode suits your needs.

Filters & Shipping Options

The advanced search form is now exploded out on the left hand side of the page.  Category filtering is at the top on the left hand side.  Below the categories there will be filters to further narrow down your results.  Currently there is only one checkbox that you can use if you would only like to see auctions with Get It Now.  We'll be adding more ways to refine your search in the future.

Finally there is an option to see items that ship to you or items that are available for local pick up.  By default you'll see items that ship to you with the option to see auctions with free shipping only.  When you click "Local Pickup" you can enter you location and you'll only see auctions that are available for local pick up near your area.

Category Select Next To Search

On the search results page we've added a category drop down for better visibility on what category you're currently in.  You can use this as a quick way to switch between categories on your search terms.

Free Shipping Checkbox Removed

A small change has been made to the auction list page.  The free shipping checkbox has been merged into the shipping type for both US and International shipping.  In the pull down you can now select "Free" when applicable.

Those are the big changes you'll see if you visit Listia today!  Stay tuned for some even bigger things in the near future.  And as always, let us know what you think, good or bad!

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ABC Philadelphia ran a great story on one of our users, Kristen Holdcraft, who sells her handmade jewelry on Listia to earn credits for things she needs. Check out Kristen's auctions here, and watch the full ABC Philly story below. 

Big thank you to our Listia user Kristen and Amy Buckman at ABC!

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We’d like to get to know her a little bit better so here are 5 random facts about Mabel:

1. She grew up in South America and the San Francisco East Bay area
2. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and Pig Latin
3. She enjoys hiking, cooking, baking, eating, and potty training her new puppy
4. She is a reformed "Words with Friends" addict
5. She has 33 first cousins (wow!)

Check out Mabel's cool Listia auctions here: http://www.listia.com/profile/361875

If you're interested in job opportunities with us, visit more details here: www.listia.com/jobs

Leave a comment for Mabel and welcome her to the Listia community!

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Our Listia team continues to grow and we’re excited to introduce our newest team member, CB! He’s joining our expanding engineering team and will help us bring new features and improvements to our evolving site and mobile apps.

As he begins his second week with us, we asked him to share 5 random facts about him:

1. He graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois (Go Illini!)
2. He likes to go skiing every weekend during the Winter
3. He’s published a few top 10 iPhone/iPad apps
4. In 1995, he won a championship in programming
5. His favorite food is steak

If you’re interested in job opportunities with us, visit more details here: www.listia.com/jobs

Join us in welcoming CB!

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The holidays are coming! With Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, we begin to think about all of the things we’ll need to purchase; whether it be food, gifts or decorations. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency and Use Less Stuff, between Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day is when household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons - it all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills.

This year, start thinking ahead and consider green and money saving alternatives to reduce, reuse and recycle this holiday:

HALLOWEEN

• Go trick-or-treating using reusable bags, paper bags, or even a pillowcase!
• Trade costumes amongst friends
• Reuse unused clothes to make your own costumes

THANKSGIVING

• Visit discount or thrift stores for extra necessities (e.g. gravy boat, vases, utensils)
• Decorate the table with natural materials that can be found in your backyard (e.g. pine cones, dry leaves, flowers from your garden, etc)
• Illuminate a room with candles instead of turning on all the lights in the house

CHRISTMAS

• Instead of buying wrapping paper, wrap presents in reusable materials; newspaper, holiday bags, old maps, towels, etc
• Save holiday cards you receive and use them as gift tags
• Cut down on holiday cards and use e-greeting cards instead

What green alternatives will you consider this year?

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So, for a limited time you will receive 100 bonus credits just for giving away a Halloween costume you no longer need.  You can then use the credits you earn to find a new Halloween Costume for yourself or your kids! 

Visit the listing page for complete details.

Reusing Halloween Costumes is a great way to save money and be green at the same time. We all have costumes that don't fit anymore... or you might simply want to change it up this year.  Either way, exchanging costumes can be lots of fun and very rewarding!

Check out all the cool Halloween costumes and supplies available in our holiday & seasonal category right now and remember to a list one of your own.  Enjoy!

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Did you know the average American home has over $3,600 in unused stuff? It's a lot of wasted value considering most households end up with only $4,000 a year in disposable income after covering bills and a standard cost of living.

To put it in perspective, $3,600 is the equivalent of:

• 456 movie tickets
• 1,052 gallons of gasoline
• 2,448 loaves of white bread
• 970 gallons of milk
• More than 50 awesome listings on Listia  ;)

Instead of letting your stuff go to waste, consider selling, donating or better yet, trading it for things you want to use.

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A little while ago we updated our post auction pages to be more clear about what your next steps should be when you win or sell an item.  Missing from that was support for local pick up exchanges ... until today!  Local transactions remove a lot of the friction that's involved with shipping and we want to help make that exchange even easier.

To help do this we've created a separate post auction flow where a seller can save and send their preferred meetup address and phone number.  Saved information can be used over and over if you repeatedly meet up with people near you to exchange items.  The new steps after an auction ends are very similar only now there are a new set of features for local pick up.  Take a look at the screen shots below for more details.  If you want to read more tips, visit our support page.

When an auction ends where the seller has offered both local pick up and shipping options, the buyer's first step will be to choose which one they would like to use.

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Like many great ideas, Listia was built as a solution to a messy and frustrating problem. A few years back one of our cofounders, James, posted old snowboard boots in craigslist’s free category, thinking he could quickly clear them out of his closet while earning himself good snow karma. His inbox immediately filled up with inquiries, and he found himself juggling multiple conversations, questions, schedules and levels of interest. After carefully selecting one person and politely notifying all other parties, James anxiously waited at home with his boots for the pickup. He waited, and waited. And then waited some more. When he realized his chosen recipient had actually flaked, he threw his hands in the air in frustration. Giving away free things should never be this difficult.

image source

Listia was created as an alternative to classifieds, with an emphasis on being easy, free, nationwide and FUN. Our auction-style listings have a leg up on regular classifieds and swap sites because:

• Sellers can connect with local or national buyers
• All questions and answers about your item appear publicly in your listing - no managing multiple email threads
• If someone wants your item, they’ll bid to win. You can also set a “Get It Now” price on your item. No need to haggle
• Listings can be posted for up to 21 days! More time means more exposure and more potential buyers
• Safety: sellers are rated and verified, and all listings are backed by Listia Assurance
• If you like a particular seller, you can easily follow them and bid on their listings
• Selling your stuff for credits lets you save up to trade up, or spend on a variety of smaller things

What are your favorite things about Listia that other sites just don't provide?

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For most couples, a wedding culminates months of dreaming, planning and in large part, spending. The money savvy folks at Adaptu estimate Americans drop a staggering average of $24,877 per wedding. However, one thing they missed in their calculations are costs that can be recouped after the big day passes.

Financially sharp brides are quick to sell or give away their reusable wedding goods, which can help their own finances as well as the next couple’s budget. Here’s a list of items that can be sold or gifted after you say your “I Do’s”:

• Wedding Dress
• Bridesmaid Dresses
• Groomsmen Suits
• Jewelry
• Accessories (ties, pocket squares)
• Veil
• Shoes
• Ring Pillows
• Vases
• Candy Bowls and Jars
• Candles
• Lanterns
• Fans / Umbrellas
• Centerpiece Accessories
• Tablecloths
• Card Box
• Cake Toppers
• Aisle Runners
• Wedding Magazines

Congrats to all the 2011 newlyweds!

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Since our launch in 2009, thousands of companies have joined our mission to change the way we consume goods and services. Instead of buying new things in isolation, people can now turn to local and online communities to share, trade and rent just about everything. From books to clothing to cars to apartments and even childcare--collaborative consumption is making our environment and wallets a bit greener.

A popular form of measure among sharing communities is “idling capacity”, or the social and economic value of under-utilized spaces, skills and stuff. Stop for a moment to look around. How many items in your home go unused?

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