bimply

What is bimply?

Friends discover exciting and useful things of each other and mututally support themselves through renting, selling or bartering. This is bimply.

With bimply you are on the best way to get everything without spending money, risk and delivery times. You see your friends and their friends offers in a trusting atmosphere. Exciting and useful items are available for lending, swapping, or even to buy. You can simply offer your own things that you no longer need or would like to lend without any risk. Only if you and a trade partner both agree, a trade will take place. The risk of selling your article for a dumping price in an auction does not exist on bimply.

If you find something interesting, you can pay with your stuff - instead of money. By clicking „I’m interested“ you notify the provider who in return looks through your items. If the provider discovers something interesting for himself you can simply barter this item for his offer you are interested in. Otherwise the provider can offer you to pay him in cash if he doesn’t find anything in your items.

Alternatively, you can offer articles as protected. This makes sensitive items visible only for selected friends - so the public remains sidelined. In this way you can build a huge DVD collection, a common tool kit and much more exclusively with your friends. bimply shows you who has offered which new article. If you borrow or rent something, you also keep the overview. So you never forget what you have lend to whom!

What are offer types?

Each article has an offer type that specifies how it can be traded. The following offer types are available:

swap
Pure swapping means an article is traded for another article. Thus, things and services can be traded in any combination. But it will never be negotiated over money.
So you can get the maddest things and services on bimply without having to spend money.

swap&money
With swap&money articles can be traded for other articles. Money comes into play when one trade partner asks for an additional payment or when he finds no suitable article in the other partner's portfolio and only asks for money.
Thus swap&money allows the possibilities of pure swapping, trading only for cash and swapping with additional payment.

lend
When using the offer type lend, articles will be swapped - but only for a limited time. A trade partner can also choose in the negotiation to lend his article without receiving anything in return. As soon as one of the two trade partners calls on the return of the articles, both trade partners reverse the trade.
lend therefore is mutual lending of articles with the possibility that one party goes without a return service.

showcase
If an article is defined as showcase, it can not be traded at all. The owner, however, shows what he likes, what his collection contains etc. by displaying a showcase article on bimply.

How to find articles

You can always see all public articles. Additionally protected articles from those members will be displayed with whom you have exchanged keys.

You can find articles by using the keyword search. For this you enter a keyword on the top right field and click „Search“. Both article names on bimply as well as subtitles will be searched for the entered keyword. You can also browse through the categories and subcategories to find articles listed in them.

Another way to find articles is to browse the articles of your friends. Go to a member profile and browse the articles of that respective member. Only if you have exchanged your key with this member, you will also see its protected articles there.

Can I search for articles regionally?

Yes, you can restrict search results regionally. In the box on the left side of a search results page you can select „Only articles next to the ZIP“ and provide a postcode. If you then click the „Update“ button you will only see the results in the surrounding area of the specified zip code.

By default the postcode of your profile will be automatically inserted. But, you can always enter another postcode for your regional search.

How I trade safely and protect myself from fraud?

bimply offers exceptional opportunities to ensure that fraudsters do not take action and chance. Use the following effective means while trading on bimply to stay on the safe side:

Connect with friends
Connect yourself with your friends and acquaintances by exchanging keys with them. Make sure you only connect with members that you really know and whom you trust. With these you always find out what's new. If you discover exciting and useful things this way, you will always trade with trustworthy people.

Trade with your friends
Always trade safely with your trustworthy and connected friends. If you find something from a provider you are not directly connected with, see if one of your friends does know this provider. If there is a chain of trust from friend to friend, to the provider, it will be displayed for you on bimply. So you can ask your friends and their friends about this provider and find out whether the provider is trustworthy, handles his items carefully and delivers safely.

Benefit from feedbacks
Look after ratings in the profiles of providers. These show you how many times a provider has already traded and how satisfied his previous trade partners have been.

Use the bimply negotiation system
Just use the bimply bargaining system to come to an agreement with a trade partner. In this way your agreement will be reliably documented. You also have the option to rate and evaluate your trade partner. Be careful when members use the comments of your articles to make you suggestions or send suggestions in a message. Start a reliable agreement by clicking on "I'm interested“ on an article page. This will make sure that you only trade with trustworthy providers. Especially for high-value goods we strongly recommend that you focus on the feedback as well as your circle of friends.

So you can always safely trade on bimply.

More about key exchange, ratings, and the agreement process can be found below.

How can I borrow, buy or swap?

Nothing could be simpler: Just click on the button "I'm interested" on an article page you are interested in. Send the "I'm interested" message to the provider and lean back. Now it’s your trade partner's turn.

Once the provider receives your "I'm interested" message, he chooses what he wants from you. To do this he looks in your articles to find something interesting for himself. Then he sends you a trade proposal, in which he specifies what he would like to have for his article. If you have nothing interesting for the provider he will propose an amount of money he would like to have for his article. If the offer type (see above) of an article is "Money" you can assume in the first place that the provider will ask you for money. He’s signaling with "money" as offer type for a particular item in being less interested in swapping or your articles.

However, if the provider chooses „swap“, „swap&money“ or „lend“ he prefers swapping with other. Then you can use the wish list of a provider, his articles and his profile to find out which items or services you should offer in order to enable a trade.

If you submit a counter-proposal the articles in this proposal will be blocked as long as you are bound to this proposal. Blocked articles can not be changed or deleted.

Once a member sends you a proposal for a trade, this will be displayed in your action overview. The description of the proposal also contains an indication of how long your trade partner is bound to the proposal. During this time you can decide what you want to have for your article, if you want to accept this proposal, rather give a counter-proposal or reject the proposal.

How can I offer articles?

To facilitate proposals and trading between you and other members, providing an article on bimply is very quick, easy and free. You have the choice as to whether the article is publicly visible for all members or protected and only visible to your friends.

Choose meaningful and accurate names for your articles which makes it easier for other members to find them. Especially suitable keywords for the name increase the chance of members finding your articles.

To create a new article choose „Articles“ in the main navigation on top of every page. There you will find a link to „Create“ your new articles in a single form and with very little information describing the article. Do also select at this point whether the article is public or protected. Especially if it is protected only trusted people can see it and a short and concise description can be enough.

What is a wishlist?

Your wish list allows you to indicate what you need, what you would like to have or be supported with, what you don’t find anywhere, what could enrich your collection and so on. You can also put vague requests on bimply e.g. "Funny movies with a little tension".

Your wish list allows other members to see what things and what services they should offer you when they want to start trading with you.

What are profiles?

Your profile presents yourself on bimply to other members. You can define by yourself what information is visible to others. And you can be sure we never share your data with third parties.

You can choose whether you want others to see your articles on your profile, what you would like to have, what your interests are etc. The better others are getting to know you, the more confidence is developing on bimply and the easier it will get to find like-minded people.

Immediately after your registration you can start browsing on bimply, sending wishes to your friends, getting to know other members, exchanging keys and finding out what others have to offer. To really start trading you should provide your own articles. Other members on bimply just see what you allow them to see of your information in "My Profile". Your postal address will only be forwarded to a trade partner after you both approved to an agreement.

All data which is not visible on "My Profile" and all data on „My Profile" with a padlock symbol attached is not visible to others. If you want, you can make some information with a padlock symbol available to friends in your keychain.

What does key exchange mean?

Yo can exchange your keys with your friends, relatives, work or club colleagues and other acquaintances on bimply. After an key exchange with another member you will see the protected article of this member. But you can no longer rate for or vote on this member.

Think about the key exchange as a wardrobe: Public bimply articles can be found on a shelf and are visible for everyone. Protected articles are in a closed cabinet. With a key exchange you give other people access to your personal wardrobe. In this cabinet you can put things which only specific members can borrow or swap (for example burned CDs with your vacation pictures). In this way you show your confidence in these particular members.

Confidence in a key exchange is represented on bimply by the chain of trust between individual members. If you visit the profile of an unknown member a friend of you could have already exchanged keys with this person. bimply tells you who this friend is and you can aks him about your potential trade partner. This is the way how bimply creates confidence: Instead of an anonymous person you trade with the friend of a friend.

How do I exchange keys? What happens then?

In each member profile, you can click on a link labeled " Invite this member to the keychain " to offer this member a key exchange. If this member accepts your offer you are both added to the keyring of the other. From this moment on you can both (depending on the setting of your profile visibilty) see more information from each other, particularly of course the protected articles.

Once you exchanged your key with another member, you can no longer rate or evaluate this member after a trade. But this isn’t necessary anyway because you have expressed your mutual trust by exchanging your keys. For this reason you should only exchange your key with people who you really trust.

In order to find members on bimply for a key exchange you have several options: You can search for members by clicking on „Search Network“ on the right side of the top navigation and enter a complete e-mail address or a username into the search field. Besides you can also browse the keychain of your friends looking for common friends.

Finally you can invite friends to your keychain or to register on bimply in the „Keychain“ section of the main navigation. Follow the link „Add Person“ and enter one or more complete email addresses of people you want to invite.

How does the feedback system work?

After you have completed a trade you can evaluate your corresponding trade partner - if this member is NOT already in your keychain. Each feedback consists of a public and a protected part.

The public feedback consists of 1 to 5 rating points. 5 stands for very good, 1 for very bad. In addition to this rating points you can write a short comment. Rating points and comment can be seen by all users. The public feedback can not be changed after your confirmation. As soon as your trade partner has confirmed his public feedback about you, both feedbacks become visible.

Important: Your trade partner may see your feedback only if he has given his feedback. So we want to prevent revenge feedbacks.

The protected feedback is a special feature of bimply! With it you can write an additional private notice about a trade partner which you can update over time with new experiences gathered from trading with this member. This comment is only visible to members in your keychain. So you can freely express yourselve and give personal recommendations, hints and appropriate warnings about trade partners to people in your keychain.

Important: You can not evaluate people in your keychain and neither give public nor protected feedback about them.

When can I NOT give feedback?

If you trade with a member in your keychain, you can not rate the agreement with it. The feedback system serves the purpose to make trades between unknown members safer. People who have exchanged keys with each other already know and trust themselves and therefore require no feedback.

When do I have to provide my payment data?

bimply you can be used completely free of charge if you only trade with friends in your keychain. Then you don’t need to provide your payment data.

However, fees apply if you trade with strangers or want to promote an article by highlightening ist title. To unlock your account and use chargeable features you need to provide your payment data in the „billing data“ tab in your account settings. You can do this anytime you want and will also be asked for it if neccessary.

Fees arise only when you take a chargeable action or if you subscribe to our premium packages. You will always get a broad hint before you take a chargeable action.

How do I pay my fees?

If bimply fees arise as described above, these will be charged via your chosen method of payment. All fees will be collected over the period of one month and the current amount of your fees is available on the „Invoices“ page in your account. The collected fees will be charged at the beginning of the next month.

If you choose to conclude a premium membership, your first premium package will be charged immediately. Premium memberships will be automatically extended if you do not cancel it before its expiration. Fees for an extendend premium membership will be charged at the beginning of the extension.

What are premium packages?

As a member on bimply you can always trade for free with members in your keychain. It’s also free to provide articles and much more is free on bimply. However, some functions such as trading with strangers are not free and charges will apply.

If you buy a premium package you will be a premium member on bimply for a certain period. For a premium member, trading with members outside its keychain is free for any quantity of trades . Additional services such as subtitles in articles are also covered or only available to premium members. As a member you can simply sign up for a premium package here and become a premium member right away.

Can you explain bimply step by step?

We suggest that you watch our bimply movies which explain the basic ideas of bimply. Then follow our tour in pictures which shows you step by step how to find articles, create articles, negotiate and agree.