B4-U-BUY Home | FYI Main Page | Texas Lottery Results | B4-U-EAT Houston Restaurants & Dining Guide | Business Services | Wellness Resources
According to Alan Elkin, Chief Executive Officer of Active International, one of the world's largest and most respected corporate barter companies, "Cor-porate barter has a well-established reputation for profitable solutions to problems dealing with excess inventory. It can also add a great deal of flexibility to a marketing program."
An example of how the concept of barter has emerged over the last decade into a sophisticated financial management tool is Casio, Inc., the electronic giant, which in the last five years has successfully bartered $25 million worth of merchandise to finance an expanded advertising budget. Casio uses barter not only for excess inventory, but for first-line merchandise. Company president John J. McDonald says, "We typically keep two watch styles-we have 100 styles available at any one time-out of regular distribution so we can barter them to get more trade credits."
Active International is the only company that can insure trade credits, which makes barter credits negotiable. This means that companies large and small can not only trade merchandise for advertising, travel, telecommunications, printing, etc., but they can use those credits to help pay their own vendors.
A good example of this is when one of the world's largest banks recovered the full value of unwanted real estate. The bank recently traded a piece of real estate, which had a $1.3 million market value, to Active for $1.7 million in a blend of cash and trade credits.
Proof of the success of barter is Active Inter-national itself. Founded in 1984, it has grown from a staff of five with annual sales of $2 million to more than 200 employees and revenues in excess of $500 million, a growth rate of more than 70 percent a year. The company now has offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Hun-gary, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia. As a result of this international presence, Active provides expertise in a multitude of currencies, languages, cultures, retail environments, media communities and technologies.
Barter, it seems, has clearly come of age.
For more information, call Active International at 914-735-1700.
B4-U-BUY Home | FYI Main Page | Texas Lottery Results | B4-U-EAT Houston Restaurants & Dining Guide | Business Services | Wellness Resources