What Is Retail Barter?

Retail trade differs from every other type of barter as the retail exchange organizer earns its fees from each transaction, thereby making printed money an impossibility.

Unfortunately for the retail exchange market, the growth of community currencies can be directly attributed to the use of printed money as it has made the exchange of barter dollars a relatively simple matter and more akin to the way in which national cash is utilized in developing countries.

Retail barter exchanges may overcome the difficulties of conducting transactions through the introduction of:

 Plastic transaction cards (which are easier to carry than cash and replaceable if lost)
 Telephone banking
 Mobile phone banking
 Internet banking

It is generally accepted by the industry that the more it can make itself seem like cash (through ease of transfer and acceptability) the easier it will be to market the “barter” concept and acquire new participants.

From a trading point of view the retail exchanges will benefit through streamlining business operations and providing more opportunities to trade to each participant.

Some of the main features required will therefore be as follows:

 Track customer wants (allowing it to focus efforts to promote trade and acquire new members in the needed areas)
 Advertise members products or services to others in a timely manner (whilst they are available – especially for time-critical services)
 Promote the members who are in debit to those who are in credit, thereby ensuring flow of currency
 Deliver information to members in a fast and efficient manner, thereby speeding up the number of transactions between participants
 Centralized access to all data held on each member including transactions, needs, goods or services on offer, customer notes, documentation and personal and business details
 Sales consultants and trade brokers need to easily share information and use information to identify top customers and prioritize their needs
 Store copies of participants personal guarantees, membership agreements, identification and other documents to your members computer records, thereby centralizing basic documentation for instant recall and retrieval at any time
 Access to centralized, customizable reports
 Remove the requirement to conduct “paper-based” transaction processing
 Provide automated “receipts” for transactions and instant debiting/crediting of accounts
 Automate newsletters and send to members based on their profile, location, barter balance or other key indicators
 Generate instant trade reports for members based on their profiles and/or a list of their wants and needs
 Push simplified information towards the broker to simply their job of trying to understand complex trading patterns of their members
 Provide uniform branding across newsletters, emails, trading reports, transaction reports, statements, plastic swipe cards, e-commerce tools, exchange website and telephone authorizations
 Have comprehensive and customizable reporting features to track sales and trading, identify trends, problems and opportunities
 Send mass-communications to members with instant email-merge, word-processing mail-merge, merge-to-fax and SMS/mobile phone text messaging communications
 Allow members to conduct highly targeted searches for other members online
 Having a cohesive communication platform for outbound email, newsletters, transaction reports and statements
 profiling members based on business type, needs and expenditure and provide them with information and promote them based on matches against their profiled wants and offers
 An online register of members with credibility ratings
 Data mining of transactional and member details designed at helping cross-sell and up-sell


Copying and distributing this article
Ormita provides free updates about the generic benefits of barter to those interested in local currency, community currency, countertrade, reciprocal trade, barter exchange, time dollars, hours and other forms of community trade vehicles.

You may freely copy and distribute this article provided that you attribute the author and/ or source as the Ormita Commerce Network.

About Ormita
The Ormita Commerce Network spans 5 continents, with direct representation in more than 17 countries plus additional partnerships in a further 59 countries. The business allows companies to exchange goods and services on a reciprocal trade arrangement.

Some of our Websites
Ormita Commerce Network Australia – www.ormita.com.au
Ormita Commerce Network Canada – www.ormita.ca
Ormita Commerce Network India – www.ormita.co.in
Ormita Commerce Network Mexico – www.ormita.com.mx
Ormita Commerce Network New Zealand – www.ormita.co.nz
Ormita Commerce Network United Kingdom – www.ormita.co.uk
Ormita Commerce Network United States of America (USA) – www.ormita.com

For Licensee, Franchise and Partnership Enquiries please visit : www.ormitacorporate.com