What is barter?

Barter is a way of conducting business without the use of cash. There are currently over 600 Barter Exchanges connecting hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized businesses across the world.

Why would I want to accept Barter instead of cash?

You’re not accepting barter dollars instead of cash. You’re getting new barter customers in addition to your cash customers.

If you have extra time in your week, extra rooms in your hotel, extra empty tables on your restaurant or excess stock on your shelves, why not accept Barter dollars?

THE OTHER OPTION IS NOTHING, ZERO OR NADA!

It's just more money that you can spend on your business, as employee incentives or for yourself. And quite often, barter clients will refer cash paying friends and family when they like your service. So as you can see the Barter customers will only come to you because and only because you accept Barter.

So how will Barter help my business?

Barter Conserves Cash and Increases Profits. Barter creates new customers because buyers are motivated to pay with their Barter Corp Dollars which they earn by selling their products or services and save cash. Simply put - if you had to purchase a vehicle for $10,000 - what would you rather do? Write a check or pay for with Barter Corp Dollars which you earned at an equal amount of your product/service at its normal selling price to a new customer? Most businesses prefer to trade and conserve cash.

Retailers and merchants must keep their inventory moving. Every seaon of the year, customers shop for the most current merchandise. By becoming a member of The Barter Corp we will bring you buyers to move excess inventory, eliminating the advertising costs and heavy discounting otherwise needed to accomplish this.

The Barter Corp Brokers Help coordinate the selling of your surplus inventory, while helping you obtain the best possible prices for your products. We negotiate for you to receive either the going price in the marketplace or at least your full normal selling price to distributors. This allows you to maintain your current pricing integrity as well as maximising your return on investment.

But I have to pay for my wholesale cost in Cash. That doesn't make any sense.

There is a cash component or cost of doing business in every business. Bartering is about getting full retail value for your goods or services. If you are in a service industry where time may be empty, you have fixed costs of rent, electricity, salaries, etc. You pay those costs whether or not you have customers, so why not bring in barter clients to fill those gaps.

If you are a retail store that purchased 100 widgets at $1 each and sold 90 of them for $2 each, you’ve covered your cash costs and realized a cash profit. Now you have 10 widgets just sitting on your shelves. You can put them on sale for $1 each in cash and have $10 worth of buying power or make them available for barter dollars (full retail, not sale price) and have $20 barter worth of buying power. You decide. Restaurants have perishable stock, hotels have empty rooms – you get the idea.

And remember, when customers are coming through your doors, they always bring more customers. CASH CUSTOMERS!

If I already Barter. Why should I join a Trade Exchange?

Many businesses are already bartering with other companies. However there are several problems with one-on-one trading. Each business owner must need exactly what the other has to offer. In addition record keeping can be burdensome. It's a challenge to make sure that the trades are equitable.

Finding a willing trade partner who has what you need takes time out of your busy day. By joining a Barter Exchange , a member can accept a sale from a member even if they do not need the other party’s goods or services.

This is because they can use the barter earned at any establishment within the network. For example: A CPA sells accounting services to the restaurant owner. He does not need the services or products of the restaurant owner but He then may choose to spend his dollars on printing services or something else.

How else can I use or earn Barter Dollars?

Barter provides limitless opportunities. Here are just a few creative ones:

Employees: Use your barter to offer employee incentives, benefits, bonuses, and perks.

Pay Bills: Use your barter to pay outstanding cash bills. If you owe a vendor money for a product or service that you just don't have enough cash to pay - talk to them about joining our exchange or one of our reciprocal exchanges and then you can pay them in full or partially.

Collect Past Due Receivables: Businesses that are unable to pay money they owe you would probably be very willing to pay you with their product or service. You may not need these offerings directly. Contact us with the specifics. If they join our network or a reciprocal network, we will work to move their products and pay you the barter for the dollars they owe you.

Earn Barter Dollars for Referrals: Barter It appreciates each and every referral. That’s a main source of how we grow our network. We offer from $200 to $500 Barter Dollars (depending on the type of business you refer and the specials we are running for that month) for every referral who joins and trades through The Barter Corp Network.

Ideas are worth money?

Come up with a new way to generate Barter Dollars and if we use it we will pay you $1,000.00 Barter Dollar and give you 10% of the Broker Fees generated by your idea.

Is Bartering Taxable?

According to the IRS website:

Bartering Income Bartering is the trading of one product or service for another. Usually there is no exchange of cash. It is the most ancient form of commerce. Any business owner or professional who has a product or service to offer can barter.

While our ancestors may have exchanged eggs for corn, today you can barter computer services for auto repair. Another example of a one-on-one, non-barter exchange transaction is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. The fair market value of the goods and services exchanged must be reported as income by both parties. Barter may take place on an informal one-on-one basis between individuals and businesses, or it can take place on a third party basis through a modern barter exchange company.

Tax Responsibilities Income from bartering is taxable in the year it is performed. The rules for reporting barter transactions may vary depending on which form of bartering takes place. Refer to Tax Responsibilities of Bartering Participants for more information about reporting income and staying in compliance.

To read complete article from the IRS site click HERE.

How much bartering should our company do?

A good rule of thumb is 20% of your gross sales per year. You need to maintain a healthy balance between your barter and cash business.

There are exceptions to this rule. Example-If you have a warehouse full of widgets you can’t get sell, even at sale prices, it's better to sell more than 20% for barter dollars instead of selling them for 10 cents on the dollar (cash liquidation prices). Also if you have empty appointments and a barter member wants to fill the spot, then take the barter dollars instead of having no appointment.

Is there any cost by joining The Barter Corp Network?

The Standard price for joining our exchange is a one-time $495 membership fee. You pay 5%* in cash and 1% in barter for every transaction. There is a monthly fee of $14.95 in cash and $14.95 in barter. There are is $100.00 in Barter renewal fees. These fees are standard fees, however every month we run specials for special type of business. You can also be refunded your initial fee when you join our VIP membership. Call us for details @ 866-822-1167 ext 4500.

Why do you ask for a copy of a driver's license, business license and social security number and tax ID?

Because the IRS considers a taxable transaction over $1.00 us dollar (whether on barter or cash) and because since we are giving you a credit line imediately we need to verified who you are according to the Patriot Act and fight the war on terrorism.

When are the transaction fees processed?

Fees are electronically processed everyday using either a credit card, debit card, or e-check that is kept on file with The Barter Corp through Authorize.net. Statements are emailed out to you the 1st day of each month.