Tradesource

MARKETING CONCEPTS RESTAURANTS

Barter helps fill empty restaurant tables

with additional business clients

George Ebberly, co-owner of Ebb’s Deli, was having one of those days. He had just received notice of a big price increase on his meats, the air conditioning in his restaurant went on the blink, and a waitress had just dumped a tray of full wine glasses on the carpet. All of this on top of a leak in the ladies room at his other restaurant across town.

Fortunately, George was a member of Tradesource. With a simple phone call to his trade broker, George was able to get one of the area’s best heating and air conditioning companies to service his restaurant, arrange for a professional carpet cleaner to clean his carpet and a plumber to fix the ladies room – all without spending a dollar of his hard earned cash. George even had new menus printed to reflect the increase in his food prices on barter.

“We average about $25,000 of business a year through our membership in Tradesource,” George said. “That equates to more than $15,000 of additional gross profits and about $5,000 a year in tips for our wait staff. That’s a lot of business to pass up.”

Bartering is an idea as old as civilization itself. By strict definition, bartering is the cashless, item-for-item trading of goods or services. Where our ancestors might have been trading chickens for cows, today’s savvy business people are bartering hotel rooms for printing, jewelry for computers or like George, food for just about anything — all this through the help of a professional barter exchange like Tradesource.

Barter helps fill empty restaurant tables with additional business clients.

Glenn Knight, owner of A Knight Out in Rochester, N.Y. “But when I sat down and took a serious look at all the accounts I was running a tab on, and how many I never received anything from, I saved a lot of money by paying the barter company. We’ve even moved most of our direct trades into the barter exchange. It just makes sense!”

“I’ve always disliked coupons and two-for-ones,” says Dick Bucci of Marlene’s Steak House in Naples, Fla. “You shouldn’t have to give away your food to attract customers, and the people who use coupons are usually lousy tippers. My wait staff never wants to serve those tables.

With barter I get paid for everything we serve and the business people in the barter exchange tend to be better than average tippers.” Empty tables are a major concern for all restaurant owners.

Harper goes on to say, “Another benefit is they usually bring in associates who aren’t barter members and those people come back and pay cash.”

“Most of my barter business comes during the week when we really need it.”
“The most important part of bartering is getting NEW BUSINESS.