Why Pay to Barter?

Bartering has exploded since the recession. This was always an excellent business practice for start-ups and retail chains in need of unloading inventory. There a numerous third party barter sites that charge an annual fee to its members. With their services, you can earn points or barter dollars to count towards a trade for a service or product needed. This is all well and good, it also takes the hassle out of looking for someone to barter with. If the service or product received was excellent you make want to contact the individual and thank or refer them to a peer. Sometimes you so have to wonder, how much more can I save as a business if I didn't have to pay someone else to do all the work.

Smart Bareter is a free bartering website for small business owners and entrepernurs. Smart Bareter does offer membership services to increase it's value to members, but does not charge members to barter. Like any site we do have to have a monetary model to maintain the site, though we hope in the future to barter all site services.

I think of bartering as another form of networking. To barter with someone you have to build a relationship with them. This allows you the trader to get to know the tradee's service or product. You can use a barter agreement to feel better about the exchange taking place with the involved parties. With this knowledge, you are willing to trade with them more, possible refer them to friends and family.

With the popularity of social networking sites and social media, we have lost touch with the "personal touch". One aspect of one-on-one bartering is as a culture we can get back in touch with our peers to develop new relationships and create new vendors for services and products. I ask again why pay to barter, when there is plenty of people willing to trade products, services and ideas for free. Yes it may take a little work, but well worth it to increase cash flow and have extra money to invest in other ventures.

Happy Bartering!