Bartercard - My Story [Coming Soon]

I have read this with interest. I have been a BC member for some time, and the only reason it hasn't worked for me is that I have not been able to put the effort in.

I am, however, authorised to sell KashFlow bookkeeping software on BC, and this was my main reason for joining. In the last month I have put on two new subscribers, and feel that this should be able to continue to grow.

In terms of spending, I accept that there may be an exchange rate issue, but I will continue to buy at what I feel is a fair price, and only buy what I need - rather than buy for the sake of it. If this means that I build up a large balance, then I am sure at some point in the future I can 'splash out'.

In the meantime, I have managed to use my T£ to get some graphic design work done, which was in the pipeline anyway.

So its all good to me!

Me too, and in the spirit in which it was intended... not as a BC bashing, but as constructive criticism.

An awesome thread......congratulations Steve for orchestrating such a compelling, beautifully articulated and useful piece of work.

Just a couple of contributions:

Firstly, the point of cash/trade splits. As I understand, Bartercard are prevented by their rules, from suggesting this to prospective traders. So your Trade Coordinator will never ever propose or point you in the direction of a split transaction. However there appears nothing to stop one trader suggesting a split to another. Simon Smith and I have done very happy business together on this basis on several occasions....and neither of us have been thrown out of the BC network......yet! The point is the split MUST be arranged between the respective traders - not a Bartercard/franchise employee.

Secondly, I suspect, and I have no inside knowledge here, that Bartercard UK management are only too painfully aware of the varying standards amongst their franchisees. Could it be that the "bringing into the Bartercard House" of the Sunbury, Heathrow and Central Counties brokerages is a pretty aggressive attempt to change their business away from the franchise model? Seems so to me. Were similar to happen to the South West brokerages I think we could all look forward to an even rosier future with Bartercard.

As you may have gathered I am a strong supporter of T£, we use it extensively, despite it's many perceived faults, most of which we have experienced [including those articulated in this thread]. Like all business systems, it is not for all. Once in, it needs to be hard worked to one's own business advantage.

Steve thank you again for a most illuminating thread, and am so sorry you have had such a fearful time of this transaction - your "management" time has been horrendous and you have had the grace not to even mention this.

Hi Everyone following this thread,

I would like to comment on the above point that Ronnie has made before making any comment on the entire thread. (Unfortunately, the real people that are able to make a difference and comment here with the exception of Niel aren't registered on the forum)

I would like to explain our conversation in a bit more detail as it was me who met with Ronnie in April / May time to see if his services were suitable for the network, at the time we had a demand for legal services in the Watford / North London area and after meeting Ronnie at 4 ELBO we decided to discuss the options.

The main point i would like to make is that Bartercard income is extra income outside your normal income stream. Our intention is not to convert cash paying custom to Bartercard, simply to bring you new business that you would not otherwise have (because if your not on Bartercard you wouldn't have the business).

If i remember correctly Ronnie was already dealing with a fairly sizeable organisation whom were already on Bartercard and Ronnies concern (correct me if i'm wrong Ronnie) was that if he joined Bartercard would he have to take that business in T£. The answer is no, you don't have to take the business on Bartercard, you may consider it however, as this may be a very good long standing customer that you wish to retain, as they may look elsewhere for other providers through the network.

In answer to the point about ongoing business; business you conduct with a customer via Bartercard who is paying with T£, have more often than not come to you because you accept T£. If you said well i want to charge cash now. Do you think they would stay around long? the answer is probably no as they would try to find an alternative.

The motivator for anyone who is an account holder is that every time they spend a T£ they don't spend Cash, the T£ they spend are funded out of extra business that they wouldn't normally get and in most cases is idle capacity, excess stock or spare time. And because the funding of your trade pounds are based on your product replacement cost it is normally a very cost effective solution as opposed to having to generate enough sales in the cash economy to have enough cash to pay the bill.

I think i may have gone slightly off track here and got a bit carried away. So to bring it back on track:

Do I have to convert a cash customer to Bartercard? No

Just one point Jay - An efficient established business does not have spare time! A business like Steve's may have spare capacity but if he takes on a BC guest he may well have booked a cash guest later which would have given him more profit! I expect he would know if a period is slow etc and what the risks are but for most of the rest of us we need to make sure we don't run out of work as a company, its part of good management.

Paul, I think you have just nailed another one of the reasons why Bartercard didn't work for me.

Spare capacity exists in a Devon hotel at certain times, eg Autumn/Winter. Unfortunately, I was getting people ringing up for August bank holiday weekend on Barter, when I can fill the rooms 10 times over on cash business! I don't mind them asking, but I did mind getting abuse from other Bartercard members telling me I had to take their Barter points all year round.

Jay, I appreciate you commenting on this. Whilst you and I will no doubt pick up on this in private, I think that it is only fair that people have a full understanding of the position.

My concern was that if my cash paying customer wanted to use £T, would I be able to use a mix of £ and £T. My understanding was that I would not as it will have to be all or nothing but that we could come to some arrangement as there was no way that I would accept this or introduce a commission charge to all business generated by that client.

The other area that I was not entirely clear about was if you introduce a client to me for a specific project and that client later instructed me again, would I be able to accept £ rather than £T - my understanding was that I couldn't. A key motivator for me with Bartercard is to acquire new clients.

We will pick up on this when we next meet. But as mentioned above, I felt that you were transparent and open in our discussions.

A very good point you make there Paul. I agree 100% if a business doesn't have the capacity for more business or has no spare capacity then they would be a very successful business and have no need for Bartercard The reality is most if not all businesses have spare/idle capacity. Its this idle capacity that should be filled, BARTERCARD business Is extra and above and beyond the normal working structure of a business and sales that wouldn't be achieved otherwise. So to summarise If a hotel has an empty room if it's not sold then it becomes perishable and a lost opportunity! If as I guess is the case with most hotels in the west country they are full on occasions such as bank holidays, Christmas or valentines for example it is extremely unlikely they would have the space to take a booking on bartercard. I think it's important to point out you don't have to accept bookings, if you don't have the capacity and certainly don't expect a business to sacrifice a cash booking for a Bartercard booking. All business from BARTERCARD is extra business and is there to fill down time or idle capacity. If anyone has any questions that they'd like to ask please dm me and I'll answer. Hope this helps

fairplay to Jay for getting stuck into this thread. I know Jay are rate his ethics.. so its good to see him contributing.

Hi Steve,

You and Paul are absolutely right in what you have sited there. It is quite clear that in the West Country Summer is a peak time for you as are holidays.

Bartercard would be relevant if you still had rooms available for instance if it was a Thursday afternoon and you still had rooms for the weekend/bank holiday, you may offer them to the Bartercard office for them to promote for a 'last minute' sale.

I saw a promotion only today from a coach tour company offering late availability for a coach trip to Paris and 3 nights accommodation leaving on Friday. Now if they didn't have any seats on the coach then they wouldn't offer the deal.

We do work with Hotels and Restaurants in exactly this manner and in some cases have clients on a waiting list so when the opportunity becomes available to dine at the restaurant or have a weekend away our clients can take it.

I don't understand why someone would be abusive if you simply don't have a room available, if its not available its not available.

Hi Ronnie,

To answer your question with complete accuracy, I'd need to know the exact case and the sums we are working with, this does hinge on the 10-15% that we would be looking to bring in extra business.

I'm more than happy to give you some further input but having to be specific i don't feel it completely right to discuss in public for you and your clients confidentiality.

I'll go through it on the phone or you can DM me if you like.

I just hate seeing people have a bad time and would like to help out as much as possible. I've been involved with a lot of sides of the business and will have come across most situations before, If I can help that's my aim.

Hi Jay,

The situations I am talking about are times when we did have available space and were advertising it through various channels. However, we were choosing not to take Barter based on knowledge that August always sells for cash, even if you have to wait til 9pm for a walk-in sale of your last room. The members who became abusive were ones who felt that if we had a room available at the time when they called, then we should make it available on Barter.

Hi Steve,

Well i guess this comes down to other members perception of fairness! If i were you i would simply say that August Bank Holiday is not available through Bartercard, (i'm not trying to tell you how to run your business here) and perhaps do what some of our other clients do and say if we do have availability you will be notified.

Having said that though if you had a walk in at 9pm then it's quite unlikely that you would have any rooms spare i suppose. Perhaps would come more into play if you had a number of rooms still available in that evening you may offer this.

May i just ask have you ever tried to book a table at a restaurant that is a Bartercard member for a Friday or a Saturday night and been told we have tables but don't take Barter bookings because we know we can sell for cash?

Hi Jay,

I think we may be going a little off track here, but it may still be helpful overall.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have never tried to book a restaurant on a Friday or Saturday (too busy running my own!). However, restaurants and hotels are not necessarily comparable. A restaurant table can be sold 2 or even 3 times in an evening, but a hotel room can only be sold once. West country hotels like ours are highly seasonal, whereas a restaurant may not be quite so much so. We operated a general policy of taking Barter out of season, ie, from October to Easter and then restricting it to Sun-Thurs for the shoulder months (April, May, Sept) and no Bartercard at all in July and August. By contrast, I have heard of restaurants who make a similar distinction based on the time of the booking (eg, they take Bartercard for bookings up to 7pm or after 8:30pm).

To answer your question about having rooms still available at 9pm, of course we don't achieve absolutely 100% occupancy even during August. We had 24 unlet rooms out of a possible 372 this year. Unfortunately, you don't know that until the evening itself. 32 of our rooms were taken by walk-in business and the other 316 were pre-booked. With that profile, it would be madness to take Bartercard business as it would invariably preclude some of the cash customers. Maybe you have to be in this business to understand the dynamics!

The point is, Bartercard is "horses for courses". As it stands, I honestly believe it has huge room for improvement. Now, if we were operating on 50/50 cash/barter, that would make a collossal difference both to us and to the pool of available traders for us to buy from. If I knew that my cash cost was covered AND that the whole Bartercard business opened up with numerous new suppliers useful to me, then I would operate "open season".

I still say dump the rogue traders and the rogue trade coordinators, but introducing a cash element could transform Bartercard.