There’s one way of selling that’s been around for probably thousands of years. It doesn’t involve shops, websites, money, packaging or even a company name. All you need is a product or service that someone else wants, and who has something to offer in return. It’s called bartering.Bartering is not the preserve of some old hippies stuck in a 1960s time warp, swapping eggs for hand knitted socks or cabbages for leather thong bracelets.

Instead, in the last couple of decades, bartering has been re-invented and is now seen as a valuable selling mechanism, both for businesses starting out and for those already established.Local Exchange Trading Schemes, or LETS, provide a framework for members to exchange skills or goods without money changing hands. There is a nominated unit of ‘currency’, usually named locally. Provide someone with a product or service and you are credited with X units of this currency. When you want to buy something, you use the credits you have in the ‘bank’.

A Way Of Life

As an added bonus, LETS schemes help create a sense of community among members and bring together people from different backgrounds. Some groups go further still, and see bartering as a way of creating harmony in a community, where members can fulfil a genuine desire to help others. They consider it more of a philosophy, a statement about how we should be living our lives, rather than just a crude mechanism to swap goods or services.

A member whose account is in credit is identified as someone who’s given more ‘favours’ than they’ve received, while a debit account identifies a member who’s taken more ‘favours’ than they’ve given, so far. Neither situation is a problem because a debit/credit situation is necessary to make the system work. Instead, it demonstrates the principle of give-and-take between LETS members.

What Can Be Bartered

Virtually anything can be bartered, as long as one party offers and another has the need.

Specific skills or professions:

• plumbing
• car or bike repairs
• legal advice
• book keeping
• shiatsu.

 

General odd jobs:

• ironing
• gardening
• babysitting
• chopping wood
• dog walking.

 

Something to offer:

• a van for hire
• tall ladders
• lifts to shops/work/school
• muscle power to move large furniture.

 

Goods to sell:

• clothes
• home grown fruit and vegetables
• homemade food such as bread, cakes, jams and chutneys
• crafts such as leather goods, jewellery, pottery.

 

How The Lets System Works

There are variations, but essentially members are given a ‘cheque book’ and a list of members, along with what they have to offer. If you want a product or skill, you contact the member and negotiate a price in LETS. When the transaction has taken place, the book keeper or administrator of the scheme credits the LETS to the right account. LETS are not usually physical tokens.

The unit of currency doesn’t have to be called a LET: there are regional variations. For example, the currency of the North East Dartmoor LETS scheme is called the Tin (tin used to be mined locally). The name is also a play on the name of the local River Teign. Some LETS schemes break down their currencies into smaller units. The currency in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire is called the Dean, which is subdivided into Vicars.

New members’ accounts start at zero. When members leave, they’re expected to close their account at zero or in credit. Most LETS schemes allow members to become overdrawn on their credits, within reason, because if someone is spending a unit then it means another member is earning them. No interest is usually paid on LETS accounts.