Steven White, president and CEO of International
Barter Corp. (IBC), predicted that barter companies will soon be
linking worldwide over the Internet to enable international barter
operations.
He delivered a seminar entitled “Trading Beyond The Year 2000” at the
National Association of Trade Exchanges (NATE) in New Orleans on
Friday.
“There are two significant trends that are
changing the face of retail barter,” White said. “First, many of the 400 independent
barter company owners in the US and Canada are now recognizing the
benefits of consolidation. Second, the barter industry is learning to
embrace and utilize the Internet, to capitalize on the predicted thousand
per cent increase in goods and services sold via the Internet by 2001.”
Already, barter companies are creating innovative Web sites and putting
their client directories on the Web. They are soon expected to link to
each other, thus expanding the regional availability of goods and services
to the member businesses. The result, according to IBC, will be added
revenue and profitability for all.
The forthcoming link-up of barter companies will cause “an explosion in
the growth of retail barter, far exceeding industry forecasts,” said White, adding that his company is poised to be one of the leaders of the
revolution.
IBC offers barter services across the spectrum of retail, professional,
corporate and media businesses. It is the parent company of
Ubarter.com, an online, e-commerce site.