The weekly newsletter for everyone interested in barter--the world's most versatile business tool!

March 25, 2003

Written by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews

Australia's BBX Continues Impressive Expansion, Client Base Exceeds 11,000

Fifth Acquisition Is Rorke's Tradebanc

It was but a decade ago that Michael Touma and his lovely wife Mireille (after becoming members of Contrabank, the first trade exchange startup in Australia) ventured into the barter business by opening the doors to their new inspiration--Business Barter Exchange--BBX.

With a sluggish economy in the early 90's, Touma seized upon the opportunity at hand, "Business people were suffering and cash was their biggest limitation. We started marketing and grew extremely fast."

Touma's expansionary thinking and ambitions to become the best, saw him thinking beyond the current marketing efforts. "I don't believe in just organic growth. To make an impact and to see worthwhile results requires aggressive growth and development."

BBX's latest acquisition is a plum--Bill Rorke's Tradebanc, known as "Australia's Premier Exchange." Rorke, a highly respected operator has been in the barter business for a decade as well, and serves on the IRTA Global Board of Directors.

In a letter to his members Rorke explained why he sold his exchange to BBX. "In the best interests of our members, management feels the exchange will move forward by being sold to an international operator. This move will enhance trading opportunities directly with over 11,000 BBX members in Australia and New Zealand."

BBX has 12 offices and is South Asia's second largest exchange with operations in New Zealand, and Australia's South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and New South Wales. Trade volume approximates $10 million a month. For more information: www.ebbx.com.

IRTA Barter Congress Scheduled For September 4-6

The International Reciprocal Trade Association has announced that rooms at this year's convention, to be held at the Mission Inn Golf & Tennis Resort in Orlando, Florida, will be available on a 100% trade.

The convention theme is, "Keys To The Future: Unlocking Doors To Success." For more information and registration: www.irta.com.

SPECIAL Announcement: Be a part of the biggest, most all-inclusive special real estate report ever published...to appear in the coming issue of BarterNews. If your company offers any type of real estate service (assisting sellers and buyers, offering notary, property management, or counseling services) you should be in this special issue. Plus, of course, all types of properties available on trade-- anywhere in the world! To get your company's ad in this unique issue contact: bmeyer@barternews.com... Do it now, so you don't miss this great issue!

More Wine Available On Trade As Grape Glut & Imports Place Wineries Under Financial Pressure

Wine consumption is growing in the U.S. but California vineyards yield more grapes than wine drinkers consume. An influx of inexpensive, quality imports also has hammered U.S. producers. As a result, in California we see wine increasingly available on barter, and in the near future we expect more wineries will join the ones already trading.

Running a trade exchange is a 24/7 effort. At every national convention trade exchange owners always talk and nod in agreement about the importance of educating their clients--making them aware of the many benefits of barter so they will be better traders.

Then they return home, and once again are inundated with simply not enough time in the day to get everything done...let along time to research and then write and layout an eye-appealing, interesting, educational and powerful marketing newsletter. One which points out and reinforces the benefits of your valuable services--each and every month...on a consistent and on-going basis.

As a trade exchange owner, you realize that having such a unique marketing tool to use for your existing members--as well as the hundreds of prospects in your marketplace--is really necessary in these competitive times. Yet who has the available time and ability to generate such a newsletter?

What's the answer...? The highly effective Competitive Edge newsletter. For almost two decades now, unfailingly, each and every month C.E. has been published for your use only. It's the professionally written and designed, yet inexpensive answer for a busy, growing exchange like yours.

Check it out...click here to see a sample copy.

As a newsletter subscriber, your exchange will also be listed here.

If you move forward this week, as a bonus you will receive 15 copies of the highly acclaimed 16-page special report, "Why and How Savvy Restaurateurs Trade." This incredibly effective hand-out shows a restaurant owner the value of joining your exchange.

Every barter company in the world is listed here click through to our global list of barter companies.

PLEASE NOTE: The Global List of Barter Companies has been updated. Check out the new companies added, as well as changes made to the existing listings. (Corrections and additions to the USA companies will be announced when completed.)

If you haven't read the current issue of BarterNews, get yourself a copy now! Orders are shipped the same day we receive them. (Click on Order Form.)

Get New Money-Making Ideas, and Valuable Contacts!

You can obtain these ideas and contacts in every every available back-issue of BarterNews.

Coming next week... Learn how a young, 3-1/2 year-old exchange has signed on major corporate clients--Yamaha, Suzuki, Skoda, Generalli, and HB Fuller. What's their game plan? What are they doing that brings them so much success?

• China has installed a new governing cabinet heavy on technocratic expertise, which promises continuity in the policies that have created the world's most dynamic (fastest growing) economy. The new cabinet is expected to continue to wean government agencies off central planning.
  
  

• Mediabase 24/7 is an airplay monitoring firm and a component of Premiere Radio Networks. They monitor music on over 1,100 radio stations in 140 markets, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to providing vital airplay information to the music industry, the company provides its research to over 1,000 affiliate radio stations on a barter subscription basis.
  

• Another sign of the downturn in the commercial real estate market is the inclusion of upscale carpeting, marble floors, wood paneling, etc. In good times landlords rent space raw, and tenants are responsible for installing everything from the walls and ceilings to the window blinds and office furniture. When the leasing market is sluggish, building owners are using so-called prebuilt suites as a lure for tenants.

• The $104 billion hotel industry is observing a cultural change in business that will affect their sales...as companies increase pressure to cut costs. More employees are treating business travel as if it's on their own dime. That's a big change from the lush times of a few years ago, when many employees booked trips without thinking twice about costs.

• ITEX's International Convention will be held May 18-23 in Florida. Over 150 attendees are expected to attend, see www.itex.com.

• Last year Americans paid $265 billion in interest on their houses. The bill for property taxes was $205 billion, according to a study of IRS records by Economy.com. So, for every dollar homeowners pay in mortgage interest, they send 77 cents to the town tax office. (In 1988 the tax was 61 cents.)

• BXI has entered into an outsourcing agreement with the "TradeIt" platform. Transaction processing, accounting and collections will begin March 31, 2003, announced BXI President John Cooper. More information at: www.bxinsider.com.

• Two homes in the Dallas area were recently moved with the 30% down payment made in barter. Both were located in exclusive neighborhoods on a gated lake subdivision.

• Have you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of this issue (right hand corner) to sign up!

• Behind the new pessimism in Silicon Valley is a sobering set of statistics: According to San Francisco research outfit VentureOne, of the 10,340 venture-capital-backed companies founded from 1992 to 2002, only 872 have gone public, 1,939 have been acquired, and 1,811 have gone under...which leaves a staggering 5,718 firms out there in limbo. In the start-up world they're known as "the overhang."

  According to author John Heilemann, writing in April's Business 2.0, "the Valley can't move forward until this mass of companies has been fully digested." The consensus view of how long that will take is a minimum of two years, four max.

• Demand for Iraqi debt is high...speculators have been buying up an estimated $80 billion in business/trade loans that Iraqi companies defaulted on after the 1991 Gulf War. (Iraq defaulted on its debts immediately after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.)

  Those loans, denominated mostly in dollars, fetched between 10% and 20% of face value in recent weeks. The bet now is that the oil-rich nation will be in a position to resume debt payments once Hussein has been ousted.

• Our March 18th issue reported the Financial Accounting Standards Board's decision to develop new options-accounting rules within a year. But more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers are contesting proposals that would require companies to list stock options as an expense deducted from earnings.

  They contend that listing options as expenses could be harmful to many high-tech and small companies that use options to attract workers. A bill has been introduced that will require the SEC not to recognize as standard accounting practice any listing of stock options as an expense...until this particular issue is examined as to its impact on our national economy.

• The U.S. and the European countries (EU) share $800 billion in annual trade. And their respective companies have a total of more than $14 trillion of investments in each other's economies. Hopefully, a postwar partnership will continue.