steve0I agree, there's nothing wrong with trying to make a profit, but take a look at their website and try and find how much they charge. Then tell me they're not trying to hide it.
They don't really offer trades anymore either, both people have to buy the items from the other person so that Sideline Swap can get there cut.
NS is and has been an awesome place for cool friendly people to trade and sell stuff and I'm not a big fan of Sidelineswap trying to come in and make money off of the community that NS has built over the past 15 years.
We switched to "double-buy" trades because true trades are ripe for scamming. (We'd spend hours every month working with local law enforcement or tracking down parents [!] -- not a great use of our time.) It's insurance, basically.
In general, we agree with you: BST is great. If you can find a buyer within the community, and the trust is there, that's a no brainer. (The trust part is key: if you've ever wrangled with Paypal Protection on either the buy or sell side, you know that it's a complicated process with little transparency.
Here's a good writeup on why it's not really protection.)
I'd just encourage you to think about SidelineSwap as an alternative -- an athlete-driven marketplace with more protection than Paypal, and lower fees than competitors. (Our share is 9%, and we apply a firm $20 cap. That covers most ski items.)
We're partnering with NS because there's really no better ski community out there. We'd be the first to say that if you can do the deal with a trusted member of the BST community, that
should be your first choice. But consider listing on SidelineSwap, too -- it's another pool of buyers and sellers, and we're 100% focused on making the marketplace work for our users. If you have any specific questions about that, drop me a line at conor@sidelineswap.com.