Bartercard To Enter India In
Early 2008
Bartercard,
the Australian trade exchange that depicts itself as the leading
exchange in the world, will start retail barter operations February
2008 in India, through a subsidiary.
Rakesh Thapar,
Indian license holder for Bartercard, reveals that the company has
signed on Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting as brand ambassadors and is
currently putting its franchisee network in place.
Professionals
and small to medium businesses, with an average trade volume of
100,000 rupees (US$2,500) a month, will be Bartercard�s target in
India, and it has set itself a target of 3,500 members in its first
year of operation. The company will spend 100-million rupees (US$2.5
million) on marketing and brand-building.
None of the
leading trade exchanges in the country are in a hurry to enter
retail barter. Rakesh Bhatnagar, CEO, Net4barter, one of the largest
trade exchanges in India, says it�ll take at least 18 months before
the Indian market is ready for retail barter. Harish Pillai, CEO of
Essel Group�s Intrex India, seconds Bhatnagar. But if retail barter
is yet to take off, barter at the corporate level seems to be
working.
Increasingly
consumer durables, automobiles, real-estate, FMCG and industrial
products companies are also looking at deals, not just for trade
schemes but also for core business areas like the sourcing of raw
materials. For instance, Intrex recently helped a power tools
company convert excess inventory into media space.
IMS
Announces Sales Totals & 159% Revenue Increase
International
Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM), a worldwide leader in
business-to-business barter services, provided its sales volume and
revenue figures for September. The month produced the company�s
highest revenue total for the year and the greatest percentage
increase month-to-month over 2006. There also were substantial
increases in trade volume and new-client enrollments.
The September
2007 results areas follows:
�
Trade volume for the
month totaled more than $8.5 million. (This amount represents sales
only � just one side of the transactions.) The total represented an
increase of 118% over the $3.9 million in trade volume processed in
September of 2006.
�
Gross revenue billed
was $1,355,000, compared to $523,000 for September of last year, a
159% increase. The September 2007 revenue was the highest monthly
total for the year, up $150,000 over the amount reported in August.
�
New-client
enrollments also were strong with 280 new members joining the barter
network in September of 2007. This represented an increase of 100%
over the 140 new members signed up in September of last year.
The totals
listed above are taken from the company�s internal records and have
not been audited.
For more
information on IMS see �Site Sponsorship� at the top of this page
for click through.
NYC Uses Barter In Major
International Advertising Effort
New York has
rolled out its first multinational ad campaign as it battles stiff
international competition to bring in tourists. Tagged �This Is New
York City,� the effort highlights the wide range of activities and
sights of the Big Apple.
The campaign
will be aired on TV in Spain, Ireland, France and the United
Kingdom. Billboards are planned for Brazil, Portugal, Italy and
Spain, while print is ready to go in countries including South
Africa and Germany.
NYC & Company,
the city's tourism office, has pushed hard overseas, signing up
marketing reps and running smaller outdoor campaigns in the U.K. and
Ireland. The new TV spots will be the first to appear on foreign
television.
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg wants to boost the number of annual tourists to 50 million
from 44 million by 2015. The heavy focus is on overseas visitors,
because they tend to stay longer and spend more. Tourism already
pours an estimated $24 billion into the city each year.
TV spots
feature a contemporary remix of Ella Fitzgerald singing �Take the A
Train,� showing icons like Times Square, Coney Island and the Staten
Island Ferry. The print and outdoor executions showcase cultural
attractions, shopping, and entertainment.
Ads will also
run domestically on cable network The History Channel and in cities
including Boston, Philadelphia and Miami. The effort will cost $4.75
million, and also has bartered ad space to the tune of $25 million,
NYC & Company revealed.
Community Time Banks Continue Expansion
The Boston area
has several community time banks: The Lynn Time Bank, incorporated
in 2004, has more than 300 members. The Cape Ann Time Bank, founded
last year, has 120. The nascent Time Trade Circle in Cambridge, with
50 members, expects to ramp up this month when a full-time intern
comes on board. They join a network of 140 time banks established
over the past two decades in the U.S. and abroad.
A time bank is
where people donate their services and receive credit for the time,
which can then be �spent� for other member services. The brainchild
of University of the District of Columbia law professor Edgar Cahn,
they offer a twist on the age-old interdependence of tight-knit
communities as an antidote to the isolation that can plague modern
life. He estimates a time bank opens every week, thanks in part to
software that eases the arranging and recording of transactions.
In Maine, the
decade-old Portland Time Bank has 750 active members, mostly
lower-income, who last year engaged in more than 25,000
transactions, including medical care at a health center that accepts
time dollars. The District of Columbia�s Time Dollar Youth Court
allows first-time offenders charged with minor infractions to sit on
youth juries to earn time dollars to ��buy�� refurbished computers.
In Texas, members of a time bank planted a community garden.
Unlike the
monetary economy, which values a doctor�s time more than a day-care
worker�s, in time banks the lawyer�s hour equals the same time
dollar as the laborer�s. Unlike a barter economy of traded favors �
the auto mechanic tunes up the car of the plumber who then fixes the
mechanic�s leaky sink � time bank members pay it forward.
Unlike a
traditional bank, time banks regularly schedule social events and,
in more diverse communities, build bridges across racial and ethnic
divides. For example, the Lynn Time Bank is an outgrowth of a
support group for parents of children with mental retardation and
other developmental delays, and the Cambridge group is an outgrowth
of one for parents of children with mental illness.
Time banks
offer people of limited means a way to ��purchase�� conveniences �
even luxuries � usually reserved for the more affluent. Lynn Time
Bank members can find entertainment from a mime, help organizing
closets, assistance with grocery shopping, pet sitting, and rides to
the doctor.
Some see time
banks as a way to help the elderly stay in their homes, with younger
residents, for instance, offering home repair and snow shoveling and
older residents offering themselves as surrogate grandparents. The
first time bank in Massachusetts, founded in 1987 at Kit Clark
Senior Services in Dorchester, was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation to help the elderly.
Dr. Edgar S.
Cahn is creator of Time Dollars and the founder of TimeBanks USA, as
well as the co-founder of the National Legal Services Program and
the Antioch School of Law. He is the author of No More Throw Away
People: The Co-Production Imperative, Time Dollars,
Our Brother's Keeper: The Indian in White America, and Hunger
USA.
Cahn�s
philosophy is five-pointed: Every individual is an asset, some work
is beyond price, helping works better as a two-way street, we need
each other, and every human being matters.
For more
information on time banks go to
www.timebanks.org.
Hotel
General Managers
Work With Audio/Visual
Vendor On Barter
Collect cash, as usual, from the guest accounts staying at
your facility that require the use of professional AV
services. And rather than shouldering your ongoing employee
costs, or your current vendor�s cash agreement for AV
services, here�s a much better alternative:
Work with a proven national vendor (a sterling 25-year track
record) who will provide all of the AV services for your
hotel on a 100% TRADE BASIS! (Payment to be in the form of
trade dollars.)
Your hotel�s annual AV billings must be a minimum of
$200,000, and this offer is available only in the
continental United States.
For a confidential introduction contact Bob Meyer via
e-mail:
bmeyer@barternews.com.
Attention Trade Exchange Owners:
If your member hotel(s) have a minimum of 10,000 sq. feet of
meeting space and annual billings of at least $200,000 for
AV services this is a great opportunity to earn substantial
cash service fees on the hundreds of thousands of trade
dollars your hotel member will be paying the vendor. Contact
Bob Meyer at the above e-mail. |
(Advertisement)
How To Get More Sales In
Hyper-Competitive
Restaurant Industry
Our street-smart restaurant
marketing report shows proven ways to rapidly boost your
restaurant�s sales & profits.
More-->
Our Web Site Has A Search Tool For You
Ever
wondered if a certain topic, person, or organization has been
written about on the Barternews.com web site? Now you can easily
find out, as we�ve added a search tool. It will quickly give you the
answer to your questions, in 3 easy steps that take about 12
seconds!
At the top
right of the page, just under where you sign up for the Tuesday
Report you will see a little Google box. It is where you can (1)
type in the name of a subject, company, or person. Then (2) click
the button www.barternews.com to search the site, followed by (3)
hitting the search button.
The Growth and Use of Secondary Capital (New Money) Creates
Unprecedented Wealth In Today�s New Age Of Possibility
There are
many forms of secondary capital�which can be defined as any
financial instrument that measures and communicates value in a
common language. Would you like to see and learn more about the many
forms of secondary capital?
We have 70
free, informative and inspiring, articles for you in our �Secondary
Capital Section.� Check it out...
www.barternews.com/secondary_capital.htm.
Get
New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!
You can obtain
useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue
of BarterNews.
Every
barter company in the world is listed on our web site,
click through to our Global List
of Barter Companies.
Give
A Gift To A Friend Or Associate.
If you know someone who might benefit from this newsletter, feel
free to forward it to them! (See the �box� at the end of the
newsletter for the forwarding service.)
We welcome your
comments, questions, and observations.
�
Copyright BarterNews 2007. Redistribution of BarterNews
content expressly prohibited without the prior written permission of BarterNews.
