If there is one thing that gets me hot under the collar it is when a
prospective guest wants to bargain me down. In the winter it actually
costs me more to run my guest house - the rooms need heaters, electric
blankets and the linen have to be tumble dried- so why should I lower my
rates in the off-season? There are far over 150 accommodation
establishments in George covering the full price range, is it even fair
to lower my price and in that way take the business away from another
establishment and forcing them to lower their rates to the point where
it is actually costing them to fill their rooms? (I'm not exaggerating -
I know of one B&B that cut her prices to the point where she was
actually subsidizing the guests sleeping over - how crazy is that?)
Yet, I have just exchanged 3 boxes of wine from a well known wine estate in exchange for a weekend's accommodation
.
Sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass of excellent Pinotage,
which we would otherwise never have sampled as it falls into a price
range we consider above our limit, I just realized what a clever concept
this really is. It's a win-win situation. Being a strictly a
one-glass-girl already half a glass above my limit, I drew my little
laptop closer to research this bartering story further. That left
Desmond obliged to sample the Pinotage further and his nods of
encouragement at my excitement over the bartering system just became
more encouraging as the level of the bottle dropped. (Understand, this
is a man who is cheeky enough to walk down to the corner deli with a bag
of home grown peppadews and come to an agreement to exchange it for our
daily bread and milk! According to him he was just desperate because I
was too lazy to bottle his abundant harvest of peppadews, but that's a
story for another day...)
The definition for bartering reads:
Bartering
is a trading system in which you offer products in return for credits
to purchase other products and services in your barter group.
An
American girl innocently required: "im doing a travel project for
school and i need to know if you have to barter in South Africa? " (At
least she had the good sense to use capital letters for South Africa...)
To this naive question she received two rather indignant replies:
"NO,
we do not barter! South Africa has a very welled developed economic
system, while the country was very socialist during Apartheid, the
country is now far more free market. We have our own currency, the Rand,
which trades at about R7.50 to a $. We also have one of the best
banking systems in the world, ranked ahead of the USA and many European
countries."
"we aren't a group of uneducated idiots who live in
huts and hunt lions and sh*t. South Africa if the richest country in
Africa and one of the most watched developing to become a world
super-power, next to Brazil, India and China. We actually have a
currency, its called the Rand."
And then from someone calling himself Bob Mugabe : "I do not barter. I take."
Well,
it's certainly true that we have a well developed financial system here
in South Africa and we rarely barter, but perhaps we should not be so
quick to turn up our noses at the time-honoured tradition of bartering.
There
are not that many official bartering companies in South Africa, but in
the rest of the wide world there are a number of bartering groups going.
As a family we have done a number of International hospitality
exchanges with
www.homeexchange.com as well as
www.homelink.co.za . As a Guest House I joined
www.accommodationswap.com , which is a bartering group for accommodation providers.
I have come to the conclusion that a good barter system must have the following:
- Businesses with products and services you will want to spend your credits with.
- Fully automated computer system
- A clear policy – you do not want to find out later that you have to pay a 20% commission on top of your membership fee
- An active Facebook Page or Networking events where you can make contacts and promote your business.
- Plan
your barter agreement with the business of your choice in such a way
that you can service them suitably – it has to be a win-win situation
for both parties.
- A benefit often overlooked, is that of
establishing a network relationship with another establishment that you
feel that you share a customer profile with.
I'm sold on the idea of bartering! But not on bargaining my rates down - bargain, no; barter, yes!