July 11th, 2010

By Shera Dalin         July 7, 2010

If you’re like most people, you’d like to barter but you have difficulty finding trading partners. Of course there’s Craigslist.org, but as much as we love Craig’s List, there are credibility issues with some people who post there. There are also great websites like BarterQuest.com and U-Exchange.com, but sometimes its difficult to find someone in your town who has exactly what you want to trade for.

Meet the local barter club.

Barter clubs are starting to crop up across the United States and for good reason–people want to trade and they want to trade quickly and locally. Barter clubs, versus a commercial barter exchange, also have another gargantuan advantage: they typically don’t charge a fee or only a small one. Paying a $30 annual fee (or less) is far more accessible to individual traders than the $500 average membership fee that commercial exchanges charge. It makes sense that a commercial exchange would have that type of fee because it is geared toward high volume trades from small to large businesses. Bartering a million dollars in product is a normal practice for many businesses. But an individual isn’t usually going to come anywhere near that sort of volume.

That’s why we’re so excited by barter clubs that are entering the scene. Three that have recently started are Michigan Barter Marketplace in Saginaw, Boulder County Trader in Colorado, and Go Local Dallas. These sites give you the best aspects of a commercial exchange (ready access to other traders, Internet listings, personal interaction) and fewer barriers to trading (large membership fees, contracts, transaction fees). If you don’t have a barter club near you, check for a MeetUp group or read The Art of Barter to learn how to start your own.

Barter clubs are the everyman access point for trading outside of websites, and we hope to see more and more of them. (If you have a barter club we haven’t mentioned here, let us know and we’ll list it on our website and in a future blog post.) Let’s hope they take off like wildfire.

–  Shera Dalin

Journalist Shera D. Dalin and barter consultant Karen S. Hoffman are co-authors of recently published “The Art of Barter: How to Trade for Almost Anything” and owners of www.barterstrategies.com.

Tags: barter, barter club, Barter Stategies, Boulder County Trader, Craig's List, Go Local Dallas, Karen S. Hoffman, Michigan Barter Marketplace, Shera D. Dalin, The Art of Barter, The Art of Barter: How to Trade for Almost Anything, trade
Posted in Guest Posts | No Comments »

February 24th, 2010

Free online classifieds have now become a rather standard means of selling, bartering, or finding local services. What isn’t there to like about it? “Free” sounds appealing all the time, “online” just screams convenience, and “classifieds” tells you that it’s a more than just a shot in the dark.

However, the unfortunate reality of free classifieds means that anybody who reads free online classifieds may take advantage of the opportunity to get in touch. As tempting as it may sound, and no matter how rewarding it can be at times, free online classified advertising can actually be a lot more troublesome than convenient.

Consider this situation: you’ve got an “overly patterned” sofa you now realize was a mistake. You don’t have enough things in your garage to get rid of, so doing a yard sale is a lot of effort. It would be really nice to sell the couch with a classified ad in the newspaper, but those cost too much for one item.

Should you post something on Craigslist?

Not if you want to deal with a half-dozen spammers crowding your e-mail inbox, random strangers showing up at your door, or unreliable “prospects” who end up wasting your time and effort because they weren’t that serious about purchasing your item in the first place.

I don’t know about you, but this situation comes up for me pretty often. I usually have something I don’t have room for or I want to replace. I’d pay for a classified ad in the newspaper if I could post it once every month, or every other week or so — but that’s not how classified ads work, unfortunately. Isn’t there a better solution?

Why not invest a known amount of money (a regular, reasonable, and low fee), into something that will pay off for both you and somebody in your community?

That’s where Boulder County Trader comes in. It’s the ideal time-saver, reliability-indicator, and option-creator when you need to trade skills, exchange gift cards you received for the holidays, or fill the extra customer hours you have ready to be filled at your business. You get all the benefits of a paid classified ad, but at a fraction of the cost, and with the ability to keep using the service. Plus, you have access to other members- traders, sellers and buyers who aren’t going to waste your time, because they don’t want to waste theirs. Unlike free classifieds, Boulder County Trader is geared towards trading — barter your goods or services for someone else’s goods or services, and both parties win.

Remember that sofa that was a mistake? Don’t try selling it and ultimately end up spending more money — if you sell it at all. Trade it for services, goods, or maybe even a sofa you’d much rather have in your living room — all for a much better experience and a lot less headache.

– Jenny N.

Tags: Craig's List, craigslist, Craigslist.com, free online classifieds, online classifieds
Posted in Guest Posts | No Comments »