ORLAND PARK, Illinois -- Eight-year-old Jacob Maxia may know more about monster models than business models, but he knows what he likes. And a new online toy exchange that brings him giant mutant beasts in return for his unwanted playthings seems pretty darn awesome.

"You get rid of things you don't play with any more and you can get new stuff, like Godzillas and Dragon Ball Z," he said of Toyswap. "Especially Godzillas."

The fact that his mom is the founder and chief toy-swapping executive doesn't hurt, either.

Launched in October in time for the holidays, the fledgling business operates through a Web site that lets shoppers swap, buy and sell used or unwanted toys or donate them. Swappers register at toyswap.com to post information and photos of their toys or view others, then mail them to each other using an online payment site.

While there are other resale sites, Michelle Maxia said she developed hers after discovering none that dealt with toys exclusively. Her site was "long overdue in a society that is overflowing with toys. If you have children, you know."

The 42-year-old Ms. Maxia, a stay-at-home mom since Jacob and his 5-year-old sister Makena were born, tripped across the idea for Toyswap almost by accident.

A veteran bargain hunter and online seller, she drew her inspiration from a mixture of sources: eBay, her need to return to work -- and a visit to the doctor's office.

While waiting to see her chiropractor, the gregarious Maxia struck up a conversation with a boy who was playing with Lego Bionicles action figures. Her son had three of those at home but never played with them, she told him; what he really wanted was Godzilla.

Match made: The boy had an unwanted Godzilla, so the two mothers arranged a swap.

"I brought the Godzilla home and my son lit up like a Christmas tree," she said. "I traded his Bionicles and he said, 'What else can we trade?' All of a sudden, it came into my head: 'Toyswap dot-com.' "

Finding the domain name unclaimed, she and her husband Michael, who works as a food distributor, bought it. A few months later, with help from friends who developed the Web site and designed a logo, she was in business in a job worlds away from her previous one as a police officer.

Ms. Maxia, who gets a fee of $1 per swapper for each transaction, said Toyswap has just over 1,000 registered members. About 270 toys were displayed on the site on a recent day -- from Barbies to Bob the Builder to, yes, Godzillas -- their dollar values selected by those putting them up for sale or exchange.

The numbers were growing as the holidays approached, but Toyswap has yet to turn a profit, typical for a startup dot-com. There were 500,000 hits but just 80 swaps in the first two months. Still, she remained optimistic the business will flourish after the holidays, at spring-cleaning time and for kids' birthdays.

"A couple of weeks after Christmas, I'm going to be looking at the toys that my children had to have and they'll be sitting in the corner," she said.

The potential is high. The U.S. toy industry racks up more than $20 billion in sales annually.

Raman Chadha, executive director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul University in Chicago, said it should help Toyswap.com that registering and posting items there is free, unlike eBay which charges a fee for each listing. He liked that toys can be viewed by category, such as action figures, puzzles, radio control and special needs, although he found the Web site a bit "homespun."

"I think the idea has some merit, but like many ideas it's in the execution that will determine whether it's successful or not," Mr. Chadha said. "The success of this is going to be based on national reach."

Ms. Maxia so far has gotten word out via classified ads on Craigslist, word of mouth and some media coverage. Regardless of how the business fares, however, she figures it is providing a worthwhile recycling and donation service.

"I feel it's going to go somewhere," she said. "But whether it succeeds financially or not, if even a few people instead of throwing things out in the garbage recycle them, then it will have all been worth it."