Save Money By Bartering

Guest post by Sam Fuller

Everybody – individuals and businesses alike – love to save money. Especially these day. Craigslist is hitting the headlines with an 80% increase in postings in their barter section, and sensational stories like the recently-married couple in CA that got $75,000 worth of stuff for their wedding that way. That’s all great news for the barter business.

Barter is nothing new, though, and it surprises me every time an economy takes a little tumble the topic of barter bounces back into the limelight. It’s almost as though barter is the ginger-headed, ugly, second cousin you only bring out at night, or if really necessary. This is a little upsetting to me, especially amid all the talk from global leaders about ensuring this type of economic catastrophe doesn’t happen again and that better oversight is implemented.

The trickle-down effect of treasury departments around the globe printing more money is beginning to have its short-term effect of easing concerns that the economy had crashed completely (in other words, multiple countries had actually gone bankrupt!) For the most part, people seem to be ‘business as usual’ and embracing a much-needed and welcomed upswing. How soon the inflationary effects of this short-sighted action will appear is not so clear, just like the meteoric impact of the tax burden it created.

So, back to the simplicity of our ugly second-cousin: barter. Proven to be the bedrock and true safe haven for thousands of years, bartering has a stronger track record than gold and other commodities (and cannot be recalled by governments, as precious metals have been!) Barter is as effective as it is simple, and almost anybody or any business can easily reap the benefits.

Barter companies of all types abound – and, like mechanics – some are much better than others. Provided you chose an exchange that allows you to protect your pre-existing cash clients (usually by NOT handing out an open listing), engage in “true” bartering (where there is no cash element to the transaction, e.g., cash for the parts or materials), are actually allowed to try the integrity of the exchange by buying first, and where the prices and quality are identical to paying cash, the benefits of bartering can actually be BETTER than using cash.

How is barter better? Simple, because bartering takes stuff you DON’T want and exchanges it for things you DO want. Any business that has inventory lying around (and that’s most these days) has already footed the bill or is financing that inventory. If they barter part of that stock for an item they would have spent cash on, it has now allowed them to purchase at THEIR cost. A barter company should ensure a fair trade, because it won’t be direct like a traditional one-on-one trade (I swap you a sheep for a pig, for example!)

Where do you lose out on barter? The major areas that businesses actually lose money bartering is if they are with a badly run exchange. There are some out there that have gone astray from a true, zero-sum economy and their dollars are not worth face value any more. There are horror stories about business owners left sitting with tens of thousands of ‘barter’ dollars that are practically worthless. Additional revenue is great, but if it cannot be spent on anything useful, where is the value? Sadly, quite a few of the barter companies out there that disclose their clients’ information or are internet based cannot control how trade is conducted.

Saving Money by Bartering. The best way to save money is to do your homework, chose a reputable barter exchange that offers an up-front credit line to spend, it’s better to go with one that has a national reputation, a strong sales support team, and is centrally brokered charging only for the purchases you make.

Real barter has only one major purpose: to increase efficiency and bolster cash flow. Knock-on benefits include the obvious increase in revenue, new customers, better marketing, more spending power, cash savings, turnover of inventory, and many other incidental positives. Barter is quite literally only limited by your own imagination. When done correctly via a high-quality reputable bartering exchange, you really cannot go far wrong and you have tens of thousands of dollars in savings and new revenue to gain.

Be bold, be thorough in your research, be cautious if it is free, as there probably isn’t much value in something that’s cheap or free, but most of all be imaginative and enjoy bartering… Mankind has been doing it for thousands of years, and will most likely still be engaging in trade thousands of years hence.

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Sam Fuller is a freelance writer and blogger writing on multiple topics concerning finance, money, and frugality.