Bartercard

[Hector]

Any views on/experiences of Bartercard good or bad? We dont use it ourselves but a chap i met with last week mentioned he does a small proportion of his business through 'trade pounds' rather than sterling and finds it useful.

 

[Iwillmakeit]

It can work for some. However you have to remember Barter points do not pay the bills. He may do a small proportion through Barter card but that will have earned him points to spend on companies that are with barter card.

 

[Dorset Drains]

We generate thousands of trade pounds every month and we don't have a problem spending them, Bartercard is a great additional business tool to have, there is a membership fee and then there are monthly charges BUT read your contract people. The whole concept is people selling their spare capacity, if you don't have the capacity you don't have to take the job!!!!! I employ 5 staff and it makes no difference to their wages or my cash flow if they fit in an additional Barter job or two in the normal course of a day!!!! Work with your account manager and they will work with you. Bartercard is not a magic wand and worse case if you can't find the goods or services you wanted on Barter you just pay cash as you would anyway!!!! Its not rocket science. If you find people hiking up their prices or unfair trading report them and don't use them. The people that winge and moan can't spend their trade pounds should be shot, you can always get accountants, marketing, advertising, business coaches all readily availiable on Barter, people don't want to change accountants, people don't want to take on new advertising to try and generate cash business - wingers and moaners. People going on about inflated prices on the auction site, if you're a complete idiot that wants to spend ten times the normal cash price on goods on the auction site thats up to you, NO Savy business person would ever do that, I have sold items on the auction site and made a handsome profit and spent my tradepounds on things for the business and in my personal life. Bartercard works if you understand it and its limitations and be prepared to swop things like accountants or stationers or printers because it does make a saving on your cash flow.

 

[JP Philips]

As the drains guy said. It does work. It will never pay your rent or your mortgage- its not designed to do that. But if you have spare capacity why the hell not take barter pounds. I've never had a problem spending my barter money. Like the drains guy I spend most of it on advertising to get more cash customers. Make perfect sense to me.

I know sometimes you call a business and they aren't taking barter work on. OK that's annoying sometimes but be fair its for "spare capacity" so if they haven't got any then OK. Try another one.

I did once have someone try to charge me a silly (more than double) price for some work (I wont mention them) so I told the local office. I'm pretty sure he was kicked out. Upping prices is out of order but has only happened once to me. What would you do in the cash world? Go somewhere else? Do that then they wont last long on barter try to rip people off.

It does work just use your head and the cash flow benifits are great.

 

[Lee Jones Jnr]

Uh huh.
Two first posters who both think BC is better than cash.

 

[WJP]

Coincidence?

 

[truereddevil]

Certainly a coincidense!!!

 

[JP Philips]

Uh huh.
Two first posters who both think BC is better than cash.

No arguement, cash is king. But that's not what bartercard is for. It's for spare capacity. If you have a business where you can say "I think I'll take another £50k sales this year" then fine, it wont work for you, you dont need it. However if like me I'm fighting tooth and nail to get more cash customers in then the spare capacity I have currently can be used by barter. I can then offset some of my cash expenses with this extra business and improve my cash flow. Of course it can't pay your standard overheads, rent, wages etc but for other business expenses it is really useful.

It does work within those limits ie. spare capacity

JP

 

[Paul Norman]

Be absolutely clear, before you entertain Bartercard, that you do your due diligence. Understand how you will spend your credits, and with whom. Notice -both those points are important.

You will need to be ready to change suppliers to people taking Barter, even if your current suppliers are good. Provided you are sure you can spend your points..then its fine.

But you will need to be willing to invest real time on the purchasing side. I mean - real time.

 

[willitbe]

Bartercard works for about 10 percent of the People. It is hideously loaded with services, i.e Life Coaches and hardly any products, the products there are, are overpriced. 90 percent of people in the directory "aren't taking Bartercard at the moment".

Certain areas like Essex and the South west work better because they have a much more varied member base in terms of their product/Industries and very active account managers that do the job right.

The account managers are also a bit naughty when it comes to anything coming onto the open Bartercard market, nothing ever does!. They keep anything good amongst themselves.

To get anything on Barter, whether it's a product or service, takes you 12 million times as long to source than it would normally, so if time is of the essence then Bartercard is not the way forward.

Our local franchise was taken away from the plums that ran it because they were so bad. They were really awful.

My advice is steer clear...

 

[garyk]

search on here, its been discussed in the past and often at length by those for and against the scheme so you can at least get a balanced view.

 

[theposter]

Hi All.

Sorry for not being diplomatic about this, i guess i should write out the positives and the negatives and all that jazz first, but let me get to the point. Do not waist your money and time with this exchange. To make it run successfully you need to invest too much time and money which can be used in better ways.

here are my reasons
1- 80% of the exchange are not happy
2- prices are not competitive
3- your suppliers let you down and stop working with you every month or so which impacts your business.
4- you end up buying things you don't need for double the price just because you have nothing worthwhile to spend it on.

i recently spent my money on a week at a full priced hotel (which charged me cash for drinks and food) and purchased a few bikes for the family at double the price just to leave the exchange.

invest in cash ideas