Skills2Barter Blog

Barter Groups (new feature)

Creating your own Barter Group is our newest feature. You can set up or belong to multiple groups and manage who can see and join the group. All participants can choose to still be active in the larger database but this refines your zip-code based search results even more. You can invite others you know and trust to join and become a part of your group(s).

For example, employees of a company often do favors for each other and trade services. If you set up or join a barter group that is explicitly for your company it will be easy to see from the listing of the members; who is interested in bartering, what they offer, and what are they interested in. A barter group for your friends and family is another group that you may want to set up. You may already trade with family and friends but when you register on the site you will have the option of only bartering with a specific group but you will still be able to search and respond to others outside the group who are looking for your skills. Many full time jobs or very lucrative relationships start small, one person helping another.  Another good example of how groups may be helpful is one for anyone interested in green technologies. Making it easy to find and barter with other people knowing your green standards will be upheld by someone that understands and has knowledge and/or experience. Barter for professional association members  is another option.

We set it up so that anyone can belong to multiple groups.  Groups can be designated as private where membership is by invitation only or remain public so anyone can join. Doing bartering inside a group definitely has its advantages. People usually know each other and references are easier to check.

We hope that you will find more reasons for bartering and inviting your known associates and family to be a part of a group. Try it and let us know.

Barter searching works best when it is based on users' zip code!

Bartering with people in your neighborhood and community is more likely to work out better than long distance bartering with people you have never met or don’t know.  Skill bartering usually requires that you will and should meet the person you are bartering with face to face.  You will most likely both need to do your work at a location outside your home. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that a plumber living in San Francisco will barter with a roofer in Chicago. Bartering with someone in your area is much easier and doesn’t incur expenses that would make the barter exchange prohibitive.  If there is travel involved it’s an added cost and should be taken into consideration when working out the exchange.

But of course depending on your skill sets, close proximity is not always required.  A web designer in Boston may easily barter with a financial consultant in Miami as both are able to deliver on the exchange long distance. But most barter exchanges are usually not like that. We deigned our search engine to find fellow barters via zip code, which supports both long distance and local searches.  Zip codes return more accurate results than searching by city, county or region.  A big city like Los Angeles has many of different zip codes in its boundaries.  Saying that you are in Los Angeles may not mean much for purpose of bartering because the parties could still be almost 100 miles apart. Zip codes on the other hand better defines your neighborhood area so meeting or travel will never be too much of a hassle. Let us know if you agree.