Press

“Barter gives clients a competitive edge. Barter network members tend to shop within the system first, and satisfied barter customers make referrals to cash customers.” – Kiplinger’s.

“More and more women are bartering for everything from pet-sitting services to airline tickets. To get the most out of barter, you must have a talent or product that other people want. Services can make even better swaps than products because they’re a renewable source.” – Family Circle magazine.

“Barter exchanges help cash-strapped entrepreneurs stimulate sales, develop new clients, convert excess capacity or inventory into revenue, and acquire goods and services needed to conduct a business. The most important benefit of barter is cash conservation: keeping cash in the bank while using barter revenue to offset normal operating costs.” – Nation’s Restaurant News.

“Evolving from one-to-one trades among businesses, bartering now mainly takes place through large exchanges in which businesses receive trade credits instead of cash that they can spend on a multitude of items from other firms. Even large corporations increasingly are using barter networks rather than handling excess products over to liquidators.” – Chicago Tribune.

“Arkansas companies are learning how to get what they need without spending cash. Businesses including restaurants and airlines trade services and products, in return earning a form of currency – trade dollars – that then can be used to buy goods and services.” – Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

“The most important part of barter is getting new business,” says Tom McDowell, Retired Executive Director of the National Association of Trade Exchanges. “When someone joins an exchange they’re exposed to hundreds of new potential customers locally and thousands around the country. With competition so stiff today, barter helps drive those customers past your competition and into your door.” – Marketing Concepts, Restaurant issue.

“Experts estimate that millions of companies, especially young ones, employ barter as a regular or occasional business tool. Barter provides one important benefit: helping companies dispose of excess inventory by trading it for valuable goods or services. That can be especially useful for startups whose markets aren’t developed enough to consume all their capacity.”

NEW YORK TIMES

By Susan  Dominus
Published: July 13, 2009

If you can teach guitar or chess, if you are very organized, if you have any talent in Web design or interior design, if you live in New York, there is no reason you should be paying for dry cleaning.

If you have any of those skills, but never thought they would get your suits cleaned, you probably have not been spending enough time perusing the barter classifieds on Craigslist, where this very Monday, a dry cleaner suggested that wide range of opportunities for trades of services.
Barter has been big business since the traditional big businesses started going belly up in October – membership for Itex.com, a publicly traded bartering site, has skyrocketed, according to the company. And barter has been big microbusiness, too: Craigslist reports that the number of postings on its barter sections has doubled over the past year.
The trend may be on the rise nationwide, but the local postings have a distinctly New York feel. On the Manhattan site, for example, the postings are a funny combination of newfound frugality and old-school glamour. A makeup artist who can do both a natural look and smoky eyes may not get paid for a shoot on July 15, but would be sent home with a set of portfolio photos – and dinner.

Does anyone out there have a bunch of warehouse space sitting empty for the next six months? Lend it to some thrifty children’s television producers, and they will make your child a star, giving the little one a spot on “a show a lot like ‘Sesame Street.’ With puppets.” A “perfectly poor writer” seeks a patron to provide free housing in exchange for his services as a “second-rate handyman,” editor or organizer. “Rich widow mayhap?” he throws out (an offer that all the rich widows scanning the Craigslist barter classifieds surely could not resist).

The ripple effect of the thud of the Manhattan housing market can also be traced on the site. Someone who usually does high-end house painting “as a subcontractor on multimillion dollar apartments on Park/Madison/5th Avenue” is now willing to trade his luxury services for some dental work.
On the Brooklyn site, the offerings have a grittier feel. A month or so back, someone was trying to unload some OxyContin in exchange for tattoo work – but this was a drug pusher with a conscience: “Please do not email me if you’re a drug addict,” read the listing. (It is offers like that one that presumably explain the phone menu message you get when you call Craigslist headquarters in San Francisco: “If you are calling from law enforcement,” it directs callers, press 4.)
Some of the postings have a whimsical, why-bother note, like the one from Manhattan seeking someone to dye some nice, old stained French shirts; the shirts’ owner, in exchange, offers free photography services – those had better be some outstanding photography services.

AND other postings speak to the down-and-out desperation of life in many quarters in this economy, like one on the Brooklyn site seeking housing in exchange for elder care or cooking or cleaning or repair work or errand-running or gardening or yardwork. “As of today, I am HOMELESS,” wrote Ken Long, an out-of-work assistant to housing builders who posted the offer on July 12. Reached by phone, Mr. Long said he had been evicted from his home in Sheepshead Bay, and had been sleeping on the street for the past week. Since he started posting a few weeks ago, he said, he has received about six calls inquiring about his offer, but none have panned out. “I’m having trouble finding a job,” he said. “I have no money. The market for what I do is all dried up.”

Maybe Craigslist isn’t just a tool to help ease the pain of the most recent economic meltdown. In his book “Life Inc.,” the writer Doug Rushkoff argues that an economy open to alternative means of exchange like barter would be less vulnerable to the kind of financial mess we’re experiencing now. Mr. Rushkoff, who is a neighbor and friend of mine, said that he has tried to pitch Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, on the idea of something he calls “craigsbucks,” an alternative currency, one that people wouldn’t have to borrow from banks. “What Craigslist did to newspapers,” he says, “will be nothing compared to what it does to the banks.”

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LOS ANGELES TIMES
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Boom times for barter

When money’s tight, cash-free transactions can keep you afloat

By Jessica Guynn
November 16, 2008
In this tough economy, Valerie Whitlock uses two forms of currency: money and barter.

The 37-year-old actress and writer from Studio City holds down sporadic film and television gigs to cover her rent, utilities, car payments and insurance. For everything else — head shots and haircuts, clothing and cut reels — she trades her handcrafted jewelry.

She started swapping for goods while at work on the set. But now the classifieds website Craigslist and her MySpace page for Fancy Pants Jewelry have become great places to find even more trading partners. Her best scores include microdermabrasion treatments, a used Apple G4 iBook computer and Marc Jacobs jeans.
“Jewelry-making has become a creative outlet for me as well as an extra income and barter tool,” Whitlock said. “It has made a huge difference in my life.”

As the financial crisis makes cash and credit increasingly scarce, the ancient custom of bartering is booming. Cost-conscious consumers are getting creative to make every dollar count.

Some are dusting off books, DVDs, video games and other little-used items to trade for necessities or gifts. Others are exchanging services such as house painting for Web design or guitar lessons for clerical work.
These newly minted cheapskates are seeing the world through green eyeshades, cutting costs wherever and whenever they can.

“In the last couple of months, it’s been like a bucket of cold water in our faces,” said Mary Hunt, founder of money management site DebtProofLiving.com. “It has woken us up. We are paying attention to what things cost.”