The Financial Express - 29 September 2000
Net4India to invest $3.5 million in Net4barter
Giving a new life to the oldest form of trade - barter
- in the Internet economy, is Net4barter, the first
online B2B barter portal, inaugurated at the India Internet
World. Internet Service Provider Net4India has a 70
per cent stake in the portal, and will invest $3.5 million
in the venture over a period of three years.
Net4Barter allows companies to trade excess stocks and
capacities with goods and services they require. While
barter does exist as a form of business transaction
in unorganised forms, organised barter networks can
help open up new avenues for Indian businesses. The
benefits: it allows cash-free buying and selling, overcoming
the limitations of one-to-one barter. The parties can
thus aggregate a large variety and number of businesses
for making their purchases.
Net4Barter has set up six offices across the country.
The venture will operate both online, through its site
www.net4barter.com, or offline through trade representatives.
Offline, companies can register their products and services
and their terms and conditions with its offices, which
will then be evaluated to facilitate the barter transaction.
Once a customer sells his products/services, his account
would be credited with `virtual rupees' equivalent to
the sale value, which he can use to purchase goods/services
he needs from other Net4Barter members. Once a transaction
is complete, Net4Barter gets a 10 per cent commission
from both the parties.
Explaining the advantages of the concept, Mr Jasjit
Sawhney, CEO, Net4India, said, ``Net4Barter acts as
a platform to get buyers and sellers together to create
new business relationships. Thus, through Net4Barter,
company A may sell to company B what it may buy from
company C on barter. It can also provide effective solutions
by helping trade idle stock and capacities. Excess capacity
in the hotel industry, for instance, is as high as 30
per cent and we could encash this by linking the hotels
to other customers who would require rooms.''
Net4Barter has already roped in clients like Baush &
Laumb, Kellogs, Hyatt, India Today and UTV, for which
it has already done a transaction of Rs 25 lakh.
Barter is a popular concept in the west, with over 450,000
companies in the US engaging in barter trade worth $16
billion and over 500 barter exchanges in the US conducting
transaction volumes of $3 billion. The overallinternational
barter market is estimated to be $ 64 billion.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay)
Ltd.
