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When it comes to making purchases, cash is (and will always be) king. Reader’s Digest just put out an article saying that bartering (exchanging goods for other goods or services) is trying to make a comeback. They go through a lengthy story about how a man works for an ad agency and was able to go to Monterey in the spring for $350 thanks to all the bartering he can do.

Here are two examples that the magazine gave:

Trejo did $2,000 worth of advertising work for a trendy local restaurant. “It’s not my favorite place,” he says. “But it’s popular.” So rather than dine like a king, he hired a housepainter for his living room and kitchen and paid him in restaurant credits. The painter turned around and got his car serviced using those same restaurant credits to “pay” the garage. Weeks later, some of that free dining was still circulating around the local barter crowd.

Heidi Pliam, a lawyer in Minneapolis, has seen more people looking to exchange goods and services— rather than money—for her counsel. “People need legal services and don’t have the money,” she says. She recently arranged a trade with a small printing company that was being sued. She donated 14 hours of legal services and received a printing credit of $2,500. With that, she made up promotional banners for her business.

Sure, Craigslist has certain sections devoted to bartering, which makes it one of the best places you can go to fulfill your desire to trade something you don’t want for something you do without spending any money, but even the amount of traffic that goes through the bartering sections of the site is nothing when compared to the traffic ebay sees; where people trade goods for actual money.

I believe that in the recession, people are looking for ways to save money here and there, but I haven’t seen a lot of bartering going on. I haven’t even seen a lot of haggling either.

Stores that are hurting right now, like jewelry stores should be more willing to haggle on prices, but as Chris has recently seen, that’s not always the case, even when it comes to jewelry that is grossly overpriced.

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Jeremy

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