Foster City, CA November 6, 2000 PRNewswire -- BarterNet completed its first round of worldwide affiliation agreements with exchanges in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. By early October, the barter site had 27 exchanges lined up. The barter site has also obtained commitments to merge with all 27 exchanges in the future.
Laird Cagan, BarterNet chairman and co-founder, compares the innovation of marrying a global network of barter exchanges to the Internet with the opportunities investors have today with their stockbrokers. "The most successful brokerage company offers its customers the alternative of investing through an experienced broker to get maximum customer service, or 'do it yourself' on the Internet. BarterNet uses this same 'bricks and clicks' strategy to provide maximum service to its clients," Cagan said.
"The modern exchange expands barter from being an exchange between individuals, as most people envision barter, to a currency usable among all participants in the network," said Eric Jeck, BarterNet CEO. "BarterNet is combining the leading barter exchanges around the world into a global trading network. This further increases the value of our currency, as our clients are able to buy more goods and services in a greater number of geographies. The Internet will facilitate increased levels of exchange as a complement to our 500 local trade brokers located around the world."
Barter, trading without the exchange of money, allows businesses to increase their buying power while conserving cash flow. Over 500,000 companies around the world have already discovered the benefits of barter trading, according to the International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA). Organizations that routinely barter for products and services prefer to trade for a portion of their needs rather than pay cash. This is because the actual cost of the trade to these companies is less than the retail value of the goods and services. Barter is especially attractive as an alternative to inventory liquidation practices. "Companies may have excess inventories that they frequently have to deeply discount to free up cash for new inventories. Barter enables the excess inventory to be sold to customers at the full retail value," Jeck said.
BarterNet is backed by more than $26-million in venture capital which was used to secure the initial affiliation agreements and is now fueling the technology and company infrastructure that ties the exchanges and their global membership together through the Internet.
