June 27,
2006
Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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From the desk of Bob
Meyer...
06/27/06
Growth Of World Trade & Countertrade Continues Upward
When you consider the incredible number of people (6 billion
and growing) on the earth today...all desiring a better life
for themselves and their family...it?s quite easy to be
optimistic about economic growth.
According to the World Trade Organization world exports of
merchandise and commercial services topped $11 trillion in
2004 (most recent statistics available), and world imports
totaled a bit more at $11.5 trillion.
Officials at the GATT organization (General Agreement On
Tariffs & Trade) report that countertrade accounts for
around 5% of the world trade figures. The British Department
of Trade & Industry has suggested the figure is 15%, while
numerous scholars believe it to be closer to 30%.
Countertrade takes various forms, which include the
following:
Barter
- the exchange of goods/services directly for other
goods/services without the use of money as means of purchase
or payment.
Switch trading
- the practice in which one corporation sells to another its
obligation to make a purchase in a given country.
Counter purchase
- the sales of goods and services to a country by a
corporation that promises to make a future purchase of a
specific product from the country.
Buyback
- the export of industrial equipment in return for products
produced by that equipment.
Offset
- a counteraction agreement that a corporation will make a
hard-currency purchase of an unspecified product from the
nation in the future.
(We invite you to check out our
Countertrade Section for
many excellent articles on this sophisticated form of
business.)
ITEX Buys Back Stock
On June 23, 2006, ITEX Corporation (OTCBB:ITEX) repurchased
500,000 shares of common stock from a stockholder for $0.55
cents per share, or $275,000. The shares were immediately
canceled reducing the overall common stock share count to
17,906,132 on a fully diluted basis.
(ITEX processes more than $250 million a year in cashless
transactions through 22,000 member businesses managed by 95
franchisees and licensees.)
IMS Commits To Organic
Growth
International Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM) reported that
all issues requiring a vote at the company?s annual
shareholder meeting in June were overwhelmingly approved by
an affirmative vote of 99%. IMS?s vision and plan for the
future includes a commitment to organic growth through the
hiring of outside salespeople and the enrolling of new
clients.
Small Business Owners Pay The Old Fashioned
Way...Checks & Cash
The credit card industry is beginning to focus on business
customers, as the consumer market is already saturated with
plastic. Up to now smaller firms have been a difficult
market to penetrate because many vendors (who deal with
those firms) still don?t accept plastic forms of payment.
Morgan Stanley estimates that just 35% of small-business
owners have a company credit card. Of those, only about
one-third of business related spending is made with that
card.
The barter industry estimates that approximately 1% of
small-business owners, in a given community, are members of
a trade exchange and use a barter credit card.
Our Changing World
Immigrant workers in the U.S. and other Western countries
have become a vital economic development tool for the (poor)
countries they came from. Last year about $170 billion of
remittances world-wide were sent to developing countries by
overseas workers.
That is about twice the level of foreign aid that went to
these countries, according to the World Bank. Although an
additional $80 billion was sent from overseas workers, it
did not go through formal channels.
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See you next week. . .) |
Marketers Continue Stretching Their Imagination
The latest
media twist can be found at Auckland?s Two Double Seven Shopping
Centre, where fashionably-dressed models are wearing video screens
perched above their heads!
The new
advertising medium is a modern take on sandwich boards, one of the
oldest forms of advertising. It combines the advantages of human
contact with modern electronic communication, featuring wireless,
internet-capable video units.
The centre
commissioned a 60-second movie for its web site,
www.twodoubleseven.co.nz. They e-mailed the link to their 13,000
opt-in customers on its database, and sent 40,000 postcards to
selected lists.
Laptops Turned Into
Portable Billboards
A
Seattle-based company,
Schtickers.com,
has launched two new sub-divisions,
CustomLaptopSkins.com and
CorporateLaptopSkins.com, to serve the ever-growing demand for
their removable/reusable laptop skins.
The reusable skins adhere to the outside case of your laptop and
allow businesses, non-profits, schools, and other groups to improve
their brand awareness by instantly converting laptops into
billboards.
(Advertisement)
Give Your Loyal Customers A Free Phone Dialer. Unlimited Long
Distance Calling For Free...compliments of your company.
This is the best
advertising and customer loyalty program you can find...and it?s
100% trade.
For complete
information please e-mail:
norm@edaddywarbucks.com.
Colleges Form Internet-Based TV Network
A new media
network called the Open Student Television Network (OSTN) is
targeting college students over the Internet. The network operates
only on Internet2, an ultrafast, separate version of the Web
designed for academic researchers.
Those involved
believe the college channels could well become incubators for future
TV programs, as many very serious students continue to produce a
wide variety of shows. While individual colleges don?t have enough
programs to build true TV schedules, by syndicating college
offerings from 50 different schools there is more than enough
content to fill a network.
(Commercially
produced internet-shows include mtvU Uber, a broadband channel from
Viacom?s MTV Networks, and Cdigix, a Seattle company run by a former
News Corp. executive, which aims to deliver music and on-demand
movies and TV to students.)
Hotel
General Managers
Here?s The Easiest $100,000 You?ll Ever
Bring To The Bottomline!
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.
(Please type in AV Services On Trade in the subject
line of your e-mail.)
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. |
Pre-construction Partnerships Aid Builders, Buyers
Newcondosonline.com, launched by two young men in San Diego, is now
the largest online condo-advertising portal allowing home buyers and
investors to browse hundreds of nationwide listings for new and
pre-construction developments. It also offers builders a wide
variety of services, other than advertising.
Through
affiliate partnerships, Newcondos can purchase up to 30% of newly
developed condo units before a single marketing dollar has been
spent...thus assisting developers in reaching sales targets and
satisfying bank requirements by providing numerous purchasers for a
particular project.
The benefits
of the pre-construction bulk purchase strategy allow the builder to
achieve steep price increases faster, greatly reduce carrying costs,
reduce marketing costs, start construction sooner, create publicity
and sales hype, and generate greater sales velocity.
Editor?s
note:
We?ve seen a few examples within the barter marketplace, notably
Australia, where developers moved a percentage of preconstructed
units through barter (trade exchange sales) to assist sales efforts
as well as provide a greater comfort level for their bankers. As the
commercial barter industry matures we can expect to see more of such
activity.
In
case you missed
our e-mail on Sunday, Bartering Gift Certificates,
click here.
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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.
Trade Exchange Owners...
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Copyright BarterNews 2006. Redistribution of BarterNews
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