Trade you

Back in the olden days the millers, bakers and tailors of this world relied on bartering to get by. Cash has since flourished, but the barter economy still has currency: think of informal dealings between tradesmen mates, contra deals and more formal systems using barter dollars.

Adding to that list, says startup founder Paul Meachen, is Trade to Save — the website he hopes will take the bartering concept to the Kiwi masses. Bartering websites — which offer a shop window to trade skills, products or services — are nothing new. But Meachen reckons his site is unique because it not only allows members to trade with barter, but also with money, or a combination of the two.

Here’s how it works: say you’re a graphic designer and you need some repairs done to your house. You exchange your graphic design skills on the site for some building services. Or say your teenager wants a car. Try exchanging some time at the family bach, as well as some cash, in return for a suitable vehicle.

The site is pitched at businesses and individuals — everyone, Meachen figures, has a skill or service to offer, or something to sell. “If you talk to any small to medium business, they all do contra deals now,” he says. “But much of it is on an opportunistic basis and within the realms of their circles and industry. This gives people proactive control over that.”

Meachen’s background is in corporate telecommuni-cations and IT, and includes setting up the Auckland branch office and researching the local business case for Telstra in New Zealand in 1995. He turned his back on the corporate world a couple of years ago, initially to pursue another startup idea full time: developing a prospective national telecommunications infrastructure.

The huge project, however, became mired in complexity and as that project was winding down, he was struck by another idea around February last year. “You could see that the economic indicators, things like inflation and immigration, were starting to turn and I began thinking, what would I be able to do as a business in a depressive economic environment? And I thought, in times when money is tight people use resources other than money.”

He hit on the idea of a bartering website by marrying that idea with his IT background. In June last year he took his concepts to a web developer who built the site and Trade to Save went live around Christmas.

Meachen, however, became frustrated by an inability to tweak the site himself, so enlisted another developer in April to install a content management system so he could make changes as required. He now works on the self-funded project full time and estimates he’s so far spent $60,000 on development costs.

As well as display advertising, the site makes its money through membership fees and Meachen says one of the trickiest considerations was figuring out a fair charging system. The site is designed so it costs nothing to register as a casual member, which allows you to list your product or service and communicate with other members to gauge interest levels. Becoming a full member (at a cost of $8.75 a month) allows you to exchange contact details with other members — the site essentially working as matchmaker. The final deal is negotiated offline.

Trade to Save member Robert van de Voort of Albany Studios used the site to offer his photographic services in exchange for an urgently needed business website. He contacted a web designer, exchanged details and within three weeks his new website was built. He’s now considering exchanging his services for some paving work and says the site is easy to use, but may work best for people like him who offer services to a broad audience.

Marketing the hybrid concept, says Meachen, has been one of the biggest challenges. Trade to Save now has around 300 members, ranging from solicitors to truck drivers, who have come to the site via search engine hits, word of mouth, flyers and small newspaper ads.

Meachen, however, is currently aiming to get a base member-ship of more than ten times that — between 3,000 and 4,000 members — and claims he’ll hit that within 18 months. While he hopes harder economic times will initially attract people to the site, he’s counting on the addictive nature of online trading to keep people bartering well into the future — in good times and bad.