Moneyless Business Exchange: Practitioners' Attitudes to Business-to-Business Barter in Australia

In recent years, domestic business-to-business barter has become institutionalized as an alternative marketing exchange system in Australia, and elsewhere. This article reports the findings of a survey of 164 members of Australia's largest trade exchange, Bartercard. There are few, if any, published empirical studies on this topic. This study is exploratory. Most firms surveyed are small firms in the services sectors. Although Bartercard has an extensive membership, trading within the system is limited with most members trading less than once per week and with barter transactions contributing less than 5% of their annual gross sales. The main benefits of membership include new customers and increased sales and networking opportunities. The main limitations include the limited functionality of the trade dollar, limited trading opportunities, and practical trading difficulties. In selling, there appears to be no differential between the cash and trade prices, whereas trade "dollars" are discounted in purchasing. Participants acknowledge that business-to-business barter will remain and grow regardless of cyclical macroeconomic changes. © 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.