Welcome to SS Barter

This past year has been difficult for business owners to say the least. Drive down the main streets of any town and you'll see stores going out of business and an abundance of "for lease" signs. Small businesses in particular have had a difficult time keeping up with expenses. While it's possible to compensate for lower sales to a point by cutting unnecessary expenses, most businesses have fixed costs, like electricity and utilities and rent, that do not go away regardless of how much cost-cutting they do.

While it will not pay the utility bill, barter can be used as a tool for controlling expenses. For example, a person I know who was recently looking for a place to live arranged a trade for part of his rent in exchange for detailing the property owner's cars on a regular basis. Since the landlord had a vacant apartment, and the car detailer had extra time in his schedule, both parties benefited by leveraging the cost of their product or service to fulfill a need.

Those of you who are already members of the South Sound Barter Alliance have probably noticed that we've been very quiet for the past few months. Frankly, we decided to go back to the drawing board and completely rethink how our trade exchange operates and is marketed.

We've decided on a number of changes. First of all, we are changing the name from South Sound Barter Alliance to SS barter. We did this partially because it just sounds better, but also because we have plans to grow our barter exchange beyond the South Sound.

Secondly, we have totally changed our fee structure. Most barter exchanges charge a combination of an initiation fee, a monthly maintenance or accounting fee, and a transaction fee, which is a percentage of the value of the trade that is taking place.