Web Facilitates Barter System Comeback
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://tinyurl.com/dj46r5
Web Facilitates Barter System Comeback
March 13, 2009
by Jenifer Goodwin
The San Diego Union-Tribune
The Craigslist ads were a snapshot of a struggling work force: Attorney
will swap legal aid for grout work or tree trimming. Home theater
installer looking to trade services with oral surgeon. English teacher
willing to tutor children or bake cookies for car wash and oil change.
Barter ads on Craigslist have doubled in the past year, a company
spokeswoman said. Other bartering sites, including
http://swap-it-now.com , http://swaptreasures.com ,
http://u-exchange.com ,and http://barterquest.com , say interest is soaring.
As rising joblessness and financial setbacks push more San Diegans to
get creative to get by, bartering, or exchanging goods and services
without cash, is becoming the new currency of the economic calamity.
Computer programmers, mechanics, construction workers, contractors,
personal trainers, tattoo artists, massage therapists, house cleaners
and chiropractors are looking to trade their skills for anything from
dental work to haircuts to free rent.
For the unemployed who are long on time but short on money, bartering
can be a means of surviving until they find a new source of income.
For those in industries hit hard by the recession, bartering can help
woo cash-starved clients by allowing them to pay with tender as varied
as kayaks, concert tickets and cases of diapers.
"It's better than sitting around because there's no work," said Kevin
Sigler, 50, who started bartering on Craigslist in the fall when the
phone at his electrical contracting business stopped ringing.
Now, instead of getting 30 calls a week from clients, he's getting two
or three a week from people wanting to barter.
So far, he scored Madonna tickets and a massage bed and traded with a
mechanic for work on his custom car, though he drew the line at a
proposed trade for bird cages.
Photographers DeShun and Yasmine Wooten approached bartering more
systematically.
With three children, the Wootens are always looking for ways to stretch
a dollar. They came up with a lengthy list of items for which they'd be
willing to barter: theater tickets, manicures/pedicures, clothing for
their 2-year-old daughter and 9-month-old son, housecleaning, rims for a
Nissan Altima, a front-loading washer and dryer, and dog grooming for
their cocker spaniel.
"Right now, people don't have a lot of money for portraits. It's just
not in their budgets," said Yasmine Wooten, 28. "So if someone has
something laying around that we might need, it benefits both of us."
The Wootens have done photo shoots in exchange for a doghouse, SeaWorld
tickets, children's toys, gift cards from Ikea and Baby Gap,
housecleaning, the services of a professional organizer and diapers.
One of their best trades was photographing artist Nicole Goodbar's
August wedding in exchange for Goodbar painting two murals in their
Escondido home.
"We either bartered or we weren't going to have a photographer," said
Goodbar, 29, whose wedding reception included 200 guests in a friend's
backyard. "Art is one of the first things to go when people have to be
frugal with their money. Nobody is improving when they're not even sure
they're going to be staying."
Although bartering is an age-old way of obtaining goods and services
that was largely replaced by currency, U.S. businesses have never
stopped using it. Bartering among U.S. companies accounts for about $4.3
billion in transactions, according to the National Association of Trade
Exchanges.
The World Trade Organization estimates that 15 percent of U.S.
international trade is conducted on a non-cash basis.
For large business-to-business trades, firms often pay a fee to
companies known as barter exchanges that act as middlemen, facilitating
trades among multiple parties.
For individuals, not only is the Internet making it easier to connect,
the willingness to swap goods is being fueled by another trend: the urge
to use fewer resources and save the planet.
Eco-sentiment is driving traffic to sites such as http://freegan.info
and http://freecycle.org , where members offer goods free to anyone
willing to pick them up.
Freecycle Network members in San Diego recently offered up hundreds of
items, including toys, a couch, clothes hangers, a houseplant and an
electric typewriter.
For many, economic survival is driving their adventures in bartering.
After being laid off from his job as a software developer in January,
Darryl Price, 47, posted ads on Craigslist in San Diego, Los Angeles,
Chicago and several other cities looking to trade computer work for
dental services.
As a teenager, Price lost several teeth in a car accident. Over time,
his partial plate became too painful to wear.
He believes the gap in his mouth is hurting his job prospects, making
him look older and unkempt.
"When I sit across the table from the interviewer, they don't want to
hear about how I lost my teeth," said Price, who lives in Santa Monica.
"I'm competing with every college graduate and every out-of-work
technology worker."
Price said he received one estimate for nearly $70,000 to repair his
mouth, far and above what his previous employer's dental insurance
policy would cover. Although he's willing to move to any city to get the
dental work done, he hasn't had any takers.
"I would move and work at Burger King if I had to in order to get the
work done," he said. "I would go to the ends of the Earth. It would
change my life."
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
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Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"