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Barter Instead Of Buy
A BARTERING OPPORTUNITY
The other day I received a comment on my blog from someone named Joe that wanted to know if I needed a logo or a header for my blog. In exchange for doing this work for me for free, Joe asked that I include some links to his websites on my blog. I asked him if I could see samples of his company’s work. What I saw, I liked. I checked the links he wanted me to include on my website, and I was fine with them so I agreed to Joe’s offer. I need a new logo and a new header to go along with my new blog theme, so this barter arrangement made perfect sense to me.
WHAT IS BARTERING?
Barter is a type of trade in which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods and/or services, without the use of money. It works when you have something to offer that someone else wants, and they have something you want in exchange. For instance, I know a guy who cut the lawn of a car dealership, and instead of accepting money for his work, he drove one of the dealership’s luxury cars. Not a bad arrangement.
WHERE CAN YOU BARTER?
If you visit Craigslist for your state, you’ll find a “barter” link under the “For Sale” heading. One of my favorite listings was from someone offering to go to your website if you’d go to theirs. They would write three things they like, and three things they don’t like about your website. You would do the same for them. That sounded pretty good to me, so I took them up on it. I haven’t heard back from them yet since I just emailed them, but I’m looking forward to the constructive criticism.
Besides Craigslist, another favorite barter website of mine is U-Exchange.com. You can sign up for free and list what you have to give and what you are looking to get back in exchange. This is where it gets fun. You can list any skill that you have that may be of interest to someone else. This can be as simple as pet walking or plant watering. Or maybe you speak french or play the piano. These are all skills or services that may be of interest to someone that has a skill or service you need. Maybe you need some painting done in your home, or plumbing work. You never know, a local painter or plumber may have a son or daughter that wants piano lessons or needs help with their french lessons!
Other bartering websites include:
- http://www.peopletradingservices.com
- http://www.swapthing.com
- http://www.barterthing.com
- http://www.swaptree.com
WHAT CAN YOU BARTER FOR?
You can barter for many things including homes. Home exchanges seem to be gaining in popularity due to the current economic crisis. Home exchange is a great alternative for families looking to save money on a vacation. Since you can save on hotel fees and expensive restaurants, it’s perfect for budget conscious families. If the other party is willing to exchange vehicles, then the savings really adds up!
In addition, if you have a service to offer such as painting, landscaping or repairs, vacationing can become affordable if you locate B&B, hotel or cottage owners that would offer travel accommodations for services rendered.
If you want to learn more about what you can barter and how to do “Smart Bartering,” read the article, “7 Keys To Smart Bartering” posted on www.usnews.com
BECOME PART OF THE BARTERING COMMUNITY
Remember Joe from the beginning of the article? You can find his links in my “recommended links” section (if you’re interested in bartering with Joe like I did, you can email him at joenathanls@gmail.com). I’m looking forward to adding more links to this area in the near future. So, does anyone have anything that I might want? Go to U-Exchange and find out. Sign up for free (Note: I don’t get anything for referring people). The more barter members, the more opportunities!
And here’s another great bartering website:
On http://www.barterquest.com you can not only swap dvds, books, games and cds but anything you can imagine! clothes, electronics, even services!
I am already registered on BarterQuest, it’s great!
Currently, they have a promotion running:
“Until January 15, 2009, we want to see who can send us the best offer for a Prada Leather Handbag, a Nintendo Wii, or an iPod Touch. If you offer us something good, you might be trading it in for one of these items! All you need to do is register on BarterQuest, post the item (or items) you want to barter, make us an offer we can’t refuse before January 15, and on January 21st we’ll choose the best offer for each of these items. It’s that simple, and it’s free!”
Barterquest is a low brow attempt at a barter site. In fact, I think I heard that they have funding for their “revolutionary” barter algorithm. They will be out of business in 18 months after they burn through their funding.
I totally agree. BarterQuest.com is an exercise in how NOT to barter. It’s basically just the same old swap algorithm that everyone else has already tried. The difference is that they convinced morons in China to invest.
Barterquest blows.
You mentioned swapping homes as one barter option. For the best choice of homes available for exchange, it’s best to check out long established sites that specialise in this service and, if you are looking for an exchange to a particular country, look for a service based in that country, our own, Home Base Holidays, for instance if you would like to visit the UK now that the pound sterling has dropped dramatically in value, making the UK a low cost destination – especially if you swap homes and cut out the cost of accommodation.
Many home exchangers extend the barter arrangement to include cars and pet care too.
Check out my blog for more information.
Cheers from chilly London.
For those visitors interested in swapping their home, take a look at 1stHomeExchange.com. With 15,000+ homes in 130 countries the possibilities are endless!
Not only can a home exchange save you a significant amount during your next holiday but it’s also a great way to make new friends and experience a vacation living like a local.
If you’re new to home exchanging, you’ll find articles, tips, and videos to help you succeed at home exchanging on 1stHomeExchange.com.
Another good website for bartering is SwapAce.com – it is free to use
Melissa: I really like to read your articles. They are so well written and easy to follow. You really have a talent for this.
Swapace is crap too. They tried to get too cute with their icons and basically just made it into ebay with bartering. There is no real genius there…
Hello. I am the CEO of BarterQuest. While everyone is free to voice their opinions, I would like to correct the record concerning BarterQuest.
What will make any barter site effective is not only to ramp up to very many users with very many items to trade, but to provide users with an effective way to navigate the virtual marketplace that is created. Manual searching becomes more cumbersome as the marketplace increases in size. We have, in fact, unique, proprietary technology that will facilitate trading on a large scale by instantly matching the haves and wants of users for both two party and multi-party trades. Moreover, to the extent that you can find multi-party trades, you increase significantly the quality and likelihood of finding a trade that is responsive to your criteria. Further, we believe that it is an advantage to support trading in all types of goods, services, and real estate (coming soon to the site), both within and among these categories…it opens up the possibilities.
We are sure there are and will be other good trading sites. We know that BarterQuest is one of them. And we can become better with the constructive input of the Internet community. (As an aside, we hope that this type of discourse can be continued without unnecessary, disparaging remarks about “low brow” attempts and “morons in China.”)
Please visit us at barterquest.com. We’re free.
Michael,
Thank you for taking the time to write a comment and set the record straight. I hope that future readers of this post will take the time to read your remark.
Wow. I can’t believe the CEO of Barterquest actually came to defend itself here – must be watching the incoming links like a hawk – don’t you have funding for PR to take care of the trolls?
As for BQ being “free” – looks like it might not stay that way:
From the FAQ:
What will I be charged?
Trading on our site is FREE. There are no trading fees, listing fees, or other charges for trading goods, services, or real estate.
If and when we charge fees in the future, you will be able to continue to trade any items posted before February 28, 2009 for free, consistent with our special launch promotion.
Even if you don’t charge in the future, what’s your business model? Ad rev? I see some Adsense on there now.
Your funding will run out eventually – if you’re going to start charging, just do it already rather than try to charge some time down the road. You’ll just piss off your “pre-Feb 28” user base.
I haven’t seen anyone do barter right and I don’t think BQ has it figured out either, with or without their “proprietary” system. Haves and Wants have been done – BQ just made it pretty (looks disturbingly like ebay….hmm)
BTW,
JaneP, the first commenter was CLEARLY a BQ drone, spamming the blogosphere (Michael, who ever you hired to do your web marketing – you’re paying them too much). I’m sure that’s why the trolls were taking shots at BQ.
Here’s a GREAT barter site…..SwapGiant.com!
This is truly simple to use with no fees.
It’s only been around for 5 months, and is already seeing surprising growth considering it’s all word of mouth and aimed at regular people.
You can swap anything here…Enjoy!
Well done. I like your posts. I’m feeling like I should contribute something but I’m not sure what to add! Anyhow, great blog you’ve got. I’ll be checking it out again soon.
Thanks, Barter Guy! I hope you do check MyMochaMoney out again soon:) Consider subscribing to my newsletter so you don’t miss anything!
Try Barterthing.com. It is some much easier to use and there is no Bull crap when using it.
I guess it would be helpfull if I added the link;
http://www.barterthing.com