Online Bartering

Bartering is the oldest form of trade. Today it is mainly used by organizations but the main problem is that it is difficult to find trading partners. With the help of the Internet, matches can be done faster today. The kinds of items that are traded include office space, banner ads, storage and idle facilities.

E-bartering is usually done in a bartering exchange where there is an intermediary that makes the transactions possible. Some of the websites where bartering can be done are: barterourservices.com, barterwww.com, and barterdepot.com. The company makes an evaluation of the item that you want to barter and gives you points according to the item’s value that can be used to buy another item.

A famous example of e-bartering is the red paper clip story. Kyle MacDonald told people that he could trade a paper clip for something more valuable but no one believed him. His goal was to accomplish this in one year and he succeeded. Kyle got the idea to this from a childhood game called bigger and better, but he chose to do the trade on the Internet this time. In two days he traded the paper clip on craigslist.com for a fish shaped pen.  He then traded it for a doorknob with a smiley face until he obtained a camping stove. He then created a website called oneredpaperclip.com where he got more offers. He used some advertising until he got a snowmobile.  14 trades later he got a house in Saskatchewan. Today the website is used to advertise swapping.