Bartering For Great Deals - The Best Online Barter Exchange Websites
When cash is low, barter is better.
More people are turning to online barter exchange these days in lieu of purchasing items with cash.
When you barter, if you have something laying around you can get rid of (or perhaps a service you can perform), you simply do that in exchange for items you need.
Here are the best bartering sites and a little about the basics of bartering for newbies...
Personal Bartering Websites
The Craigslist online barter message boards have actually doubled in recent months, and new barter exchange websites are cropping up daily.
Two of the most popular online barter exchange sites are Swaptree and U-exchange. In fact, they were recently mentioned on a Today Show segment.
I attempted to find other good barter exchange sites, but they all seemed to be incomplete, regional (like Craigslist), or had other website issues. So the best online bartering sites do, in fact, appear to be Swaptree and U-Exchange.
- Swaptree sticks to a small niche of luxury items such as books, music, DVDs and video games. It allows you to trade items you have already used and no longer need for new items. This is important in the book, movie, video game industry, because most books are only read once, and video games have a low shelf life per child. It's great these items can be traded for something else after a few months. To arrange a barter agreement on Swaptree, you just post the items you no longer want, and allow the site to seek out items that you can get in exchange. You then pick the items you want and trade paying only the price of postage. This website is free to use.
- U-Exchange allows you to trade anything. The website facilitates person-to-person trades and does not charge fees or take commission on trades. U-Exchange allows you to browse through posted trades and to post your own items. You become a member by posting your first trade and at that point, you can send and receive messages through the site's anonymous email system, put up hyperlinks to your website, post on the message board, and more. Like eBay, you can also bookmark items that appeal to you -- so you can revisit them later. You can also opt to place a premium listing on the site.
These two online barter exchange websites do not address the needs of many business owners who are seeking to barter online. But for the average Joe, you just might find someone you can barter with!
Business Bartering Websites
If you are looking to barter for big bucks, then you may want to check out some of the following corporate and business bartering websites:
BizXchange is a membership-based association that allows members to buy and sell products and services using exchange dollars. The website acts as a type of bank with all transactions legally reported to the IRS.
NATE Corporate Barter enables businesses to barter their unsold inventory and excess capacity for things they need.
NATE Corporate Barter Division purchases your unsold inventory and excess capacity, and provides immediate value redeemable through an online barter network, called The BANC. With a network of over 50,000 trading partners throughout the U.S. and Canada, this online barter BANC offers a Corporate Barter Membership, allowing corporations to generate immediate value for their under-performing assets and excess capacity. Source
International Monetary Systems Barter Network allows you to save money by converting your goods in to trade dollars, attract new customers through the barter system, and increase sales by trading at full inventory value instead of taking mark-downs.
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The Business Of Bartering (with video)
Home Exchanging has been around for some time and can be done in a number of ways. I have traded our two vacation rental properties on Sanibel for vacation homes around the world through home exchange sites and social media.
The newest niche for vacation home owners is Second Porch, a Facebook app. On Second Porch, a vacation home owner can find exchanges, or even promote their property for a rental. This is a transparent medium and the greatest value of this free application is that vacation property owners can know who is looking and just who the inquiry is coming from. It takes the guess work out of doing an exchange.
i personally have used www.favorpals.com for my bartering. i really like it and no other site offers what it provides its users.