In this episode I’m connecting with John Porter, Founder & CEO, BarterPay®. We catch up and explore the innovative and exciting world of modern barter, a system that has taken the age-old practice of one-to-one bartering and transformed it into a one-to-many organized system where thousands of businesses are converting their unsold time and space and idle inventory into what they need and conserving their hard-earned cash.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode I’m connecting with John Porter, Founder & CEO, BarterPay®. We catch up and explore the innovative and exciting world of modern barter, a system that has taken the age-old practice of one-to-one bartering and transformed it into a one-to-many organized system where thousands of businesses are converting their unsold time and space and idle inventory into what they need and conserving their hard-earned cash.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. In this episode, I'm connecting with John Porter, founder and CEO BarterPay. We catch up and explore the innovative and exciting world of modern barter, a system that has taken the age-old practice of one-to-one bartering and transformed it into a one-to-many organized system where thousands of businesses are converting their unsold time and space and idle inventory into what they need and conserving their hard-earned cash.
John Porter
For sure, yeah, so we had a jewelry store in Hamilton, right when the pandemic hit, they were sitting on about 40, $50,000 with a beautiful jewelry, but it was in their clearance section, you know, mark down the typical 30, 40, 50% off kind of thing. And, they had had some of that product, you know, anywhere from one year, it was one year old, up to about seven years old, and they needed a new website, they wanted to really get things moving along with their website, their digital presence, eCommerce and that sort of thing. So, without BarterPay, they would have had to go you know, spend, say $10,000 in their hard-earned cash on hand to go and buy that website. Instead, they made the smart choice to join BarterPay. We connected them with their Barter Coach. We, you know, put aside a bunch of their inventory into that Barter Mall we're talking about. We then blasted it out to our network.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now. John, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this morning?
John Porter
Yeah, thanks so much, Michael. It's great to be here. I'm doing great.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, it's great to hear your voice you and I've met a couple times, I think the last time we met was at the RC Show on the restaurant side of the business. You've been doing, you continue to do some work in that. So, it's been a long time since you and I have been together in person. So again, it's great to, great to hear your voice and great things going on with Retail Council of Canada and your initiatives. I want to talk all about that, all the Barter, all about BarterPay, how this works. And you know, we'll have, what's different about this now and all those great things. But let's start at the beginning. Tell us about yourself, your background and your role of BarterPay.
John Porter
Perfect, yes. So, my name John Porter, Founder and CEO of BarterPay. I've actually been in the barter payment space for 25 years this September. Way too early to the market 25 years ago. You know, small businesses weren't really ready for sort of this whole digital sort of form of doing business and digital currency, that sort of thing. But yeah, so, I've been in the payment space for a long time, barter and love it, love consulting with small businesses helping them you know, utilize their, their unsold time and space or their idle inventory to get the things that they need, which can really boost their bottom line. And yeah, BarterPay launched in May of 2018. And since then, we've been kind of growing pretty rapidly. And yeah, really excited for the future here to help all these small businesses in this way.
Michael LeBlanc
Fantastic, now, we're all virtual, so to speak. But whereabouts are you located? Where do you, where do you call home?
John Porter
Yeah, so I live in the Niagara region and a little town called Vineland.
Michael LeBlanc
Nice.
John Porter
And just 22 minutes down the road, down the QEW towards Hamilton, just in Stoney Creek there is where our head office is for Canada. So, I spend most of my time during the day out of the office at this point.
Michael LeBlanc
Alright, let's talk about BarterPay. So, and, unpack it for us. How it works, you said in the beginning, you know, early days, it was maybe a little too early days. I mean, I remember in my career, there is the opportunity for barter on media credits and different things. But it wasn't what it was today because the infrastructure wasn't there. And, and, you know, the digital savviness, so to speak, wasn't there either. So tell me how it works. The industries you cover, the size of businesses and, and let's get started there.
John Porter
Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, basically, at this point, we're a social profit enterprise that helps businesses across Canada get what they need without having to use any money. Instead, they can just, you know, offer up their spare capacity, their unsold time and space, or in this case for the retail audience, other idle inventory. So, I mean, we all know like we've already talked about bartering is really the oldest form of commerce. It's how business was invented right a long time ago. But for two people to actually enter into a fair trade, each side has to want what the other person has at the same time and at the same value. And so, it's actually called the coincidence of wants. And so to solve that problem, we've just essentially created this platform, this marketplace, this closed loop ecosystem, where a business can now open an account with BarterPay. So, a retailer say, they can then offer up their idle inventory to the system, to the network, in exchange for barter credits. And one barter credit equals one Canadian dollar for valuation, accounting and tax. So, they can offer up this inventory, they bank this newly earned revenue stream in the form of barter credits. Then they can take that barter credit, it doesn't expire, they can go and barter and trade with anybody in the entire ecosystem. So, no longer are they restricted to this one-on-one bartering transaction, it is now one-to-many ecosystem where everybody is getting what they need, in exchange for what they have and buying at their wholesale cost of goods, essentially.
Michael LeBlanc
And so this ecosystem you describe its coast to coast in Canada? Or is it provincial? Or is it your next door neighbor? Or is it, how does, tell me about that.
John Porter
Yeah, so currently, we've got about 18 locations across Canada. About four, almost 4000 members and growing pretty quickly. So, we're from Victoria, BC, all the way to Moncton, New Brunswick and most of the areas in between. But we're looking to really obviously scale up and get full coverage across the country and, yeah, so we're in the process of sort of expanding in that way,
Michael LeBlanc
Now, in your model what, why does it matter that there's a physical presence in whether it's Moncton or Victoria? Can you, can you become a member and offer up inventory, so to speak virtually, or tell me about that, unpack that for me.
John Porter
Yeah, for sure. In fact, when, when COVID hit back in March, we really pivoted quickly to even launch our own online sort of Barter Mall with like a multi-vendor marketplace. So, now retailers anywhere in the country, doesn't matter where you're located, can actually join BarterPay, establish their account, they can then take certain portions of their inventory that they feel is more idle, you know, excess capacity excess inventory, they can load that into our Barter Shopify Mall. Our clients shop through, through the mall, they can then bank those Barter Credits. Pick pack and ship like they normally would with any eCommerce transaction. And so borders are becoming less of a, you know, sort of, quote unquote, an issue with the whole bartering system.
But, at the same time, people buy and sell, you know, 95% of their transactions happen in their own local marketplace, especially when it comes to services. So, in terms of, you know, bartering is all based on proximity as well, because, you know, again, the whole service-based industry. So, we like to grow in clusters in cities. But essentially, as we start to grow and expand and go from 4000 members to 100,000 members across Canada, we're gonna weave together the entire, you know, ecosystem across the country, the businesses, and they can all do business with each other through the bartering system.
Michael LeBlanc
Can you give me a couple of examples that you've seen on the platform, you just continue to flesh this out, so,
John Porter
For sure, yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, give me that. Let's start there. Give me kind of examples of how, you name names or not of members, but some examples of what transactions kind of happen. Again, I think the more examples, the better to help them, you know, to, yeah, to help folks understand what, what exactly they can do with the, with the platform,
John Porter
For sure. Yeah, so we had a jewelry store in Hamilton, right, when the pandemic hit, they were sitting on about well, 40, $50,000 worth of beautiful jewelry, but it was in their clearance section, you know, mark down the typical 30, 40, 50% off kind of thing. And they had had some of that product, you know, anywhere from one year, it was one year old, up to about seven years old. And they needed a new website, they wanted to really get things moving along with their website, their digital presence, eCommerce, and that sort of thing. So, without BarterPay, they would have had to go you know, spend, say $10,000 in their hard-earned cash on hand to go and buy that website. Instead, they made they made the smart choice to join BarterPay, we connected them with their Barter Coach. We, you know, put aside a bunch of their inventory into that Barter Mall we're talking about. We then blasted it out to our network. And about first week we sold $15,000 worth of that clearance jewelry at the regular retail price. So, they bank those 15,000 Barter Credits from about eight different buyers across Canada. Then they took those Barter Credits and use them to get the website from another member of the ecosystem who builds websites. So, essentially, they're able to conserve cash in that way, because they're not touching new cash to get their website. They're simply taking sunk cost inventory and switching it for the website by leveraging the bartering, the organized bartering system. So, to accomplish that same transaction, the old barter way, they literally have to find a web development company that wants $15,000,
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right,
John Porter
Of that clearance jewelry, and that's not going to work, right, that's just not going to line up properly. So,
Michael LeBlanc
That's funny, that's exactly what I was thinking of, I'm like who would buy that much jewelry. But, so what you're saying is these, these eight people each bought a piece, let's say they had 100 pieces just for easy math. And so eight people bought those 100 pieces. So, that goes out to everywhere. And then it created a credit that they could pick up and turn around and use with this website development company,
John Porter
Correct, yeah. So it created a multi-directional one-to-many ecosystem transaction barter transactions, instead of that conundrum of the coincidence of one. Right, of that one-on-one transaction. So yeah, super excited for that. And they were super happy, because hey, they didn't know they could take that cash that they maybe were going to earmark for their website, and then they can use it for something else that they couldn't barter for, like some leasehold improvements, or maybe some PPE, some extra PPE that they needed or whatever. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
John Porter
Yeah, yeah, that's, and I think for small retailers, you know, direct to consumer right up to larger retailers, we're actually starting to get a number of larger retailers contact us who are sitting, you know, we're talking like, you know, 1000 plus locations across Canada, and each, each dealer is sitting on certain amounts of idle inventory that's not being utilized. And, if they're able to leverage that, and you'll get good value for it at the full retail value, and then turn around and offset a cash expenditure in the future. Just so many positive benefits of being able to do that.
Michael LeBlanc
You mentioned this idea of a Barter Coach, what's that?
John Porter
Yeah, so a Barter Coach, so, what we do is we, whenever a business joins BarterPay, they get their account number, but we really connect them to a real life human and that Barter Coach comes alongside of the client and the member in two ways. Number one, to help them market their goods or services out to the system in order to earn Barter Credits. And number two, to work with that member on their wish list of things they might want from the system. So, we know that businesses are very busy, have a lot of things on the go and you know, they're not going to always be thinking about Barter Pay top of mind. So, having that coach that they can lean on to help them, you know, earn Barter Credits and utilize Barter Credits almost like an extension of their own team, we know that that's one of the ways that we can create success for our members is that that client relationship.
Michael LeBlanc
I see, so you got a subject matter expert, knows ecosystem kind of coaches them on how to use it and then, and then looks for opportunities and just make sure they're successful, right. I mean, that's exactly the objective, right.
John Porter
Right, 100% yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
All right, so the, the big news is you partnered with the Retail Council of Canada, you're now a member benefit partner. So, let's start with your base offer, so to speak to the members and then we'll talk about some exciting, something else that you did that's really exciting. But what's the base offer for members of Retail Council of Canada?
John Porter
Yep, so any RCC member, when they joined BarterPay will get $175 bill credit compliments of RCC upon their account activation. And so, that's a great offer from Retail Council of Canada. And BarterPay essentially covers their cost of joining and their first three months monthly fee of their subscription on their account.
Michael LeBlanc
Okay, so you get your base offer, which run, which is available now. And you can go on to retailcouncil.org find that in the benefits section. Now, put out a press release, and you've got this exciting grant program. So, unpack that for me.
John Porter
Yeah, absolutely. So right now, if you're an RCC member, it's actually 100% free to join, you know, no monthly fee for three months. And, we're also offering a grant matching program. What we've done is we've earmarked 25 million Barter Credits to the retail sector across Canada, to small independent retailers. And, essentially what we do is as soon as they open their account, we start to you know, pick what that Barter Coach, we start to market their idle inventory out to the network. And as soon as we've helped them sell $1,000 worth of their idle inventory at the full retail value, in other words, they bank that first 1000 Barter Credits, we then match it from, from BarterPay with a grant of 1000 Barter Credits. So, they're getting like 2000 Barter Credits for the first $1,000 in idle inventory, which then they can go take those Barter Credits and, you know, upgrade their website or buy some PPE, or do some leasehold improvements, or some printing, or customer appreciation, or whatever it is that they want to get back from the system. And it's just distributing that value across the retail sector that's been so badly hurt by the pandemic and we just want to do whatever we can to help the sector recover.
Michael LeBlanc
But sounds like a great initiative. And did you say $25 million? Did I get that right?
John Porter
Yeah, 25 million Barter Credits yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow. 25 million Barter Credits. And as you said they're valued at $1 each for your tax and all those, all the accountants listening kind of thing, right?
John Porter
For sure. Yeah, it's 100% you know, the CRA values one Barter Credit as one Canadian dollar. So, any small business that banks a Barter Credit, or business that banks a Barter Credit, it's considered revenue, and when they spend a Barter Credit, it's considered an expense, you know, HST or GST, GST still applies.
Michael LeBlanc
Okay, okay. So, you got it all figured out. I mean, this is a, you see these are some of my questions, is how you take this age-old system, and you put it in the modern era and still be, you know, 'A' flexible and 'B' compliant and make it really useful. So, it sounds great.
And now, let's talk about what you're hearing from your, from your members. You said, you've got, what is it, 4000 members, I mean, you're, you're at the at this intersection now at this most unusual time. I mean, you launched this long before the COVID crisis. And it feels like the COVID era provides both opportunity and, and risk. I feel like once we get past this period that we're in, and you know, each province is having their own different type of COVID, here are the Atlantic bubble notwithstanding. And, that this is a lot of, I call it enthusiasm. I mean, there's a lot of optimism for when we're past this, and innovation gonna happen. What like, is that your sense as well?
John Porter
Well, I think it is, at the end of the day, you know, small business owners and entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the Canadian economy. They are some of the most resilient, you know, people on the planet. And so, you know, just building a business without, without COVID is hard to do, with COVID it's harder. But those that, those that made a quick pivot and are actually embracing that innovation you're talking about things like BarterPay, you know, eCommerce, there's lots of other great programs out there, they're being, you know, rolled out by the government, both provincially and nationally. So, yeah, we're, there's optimism, for sure. And so, we're just excited to partner with these businesses and help them navigate this as best as possible. And, yeah, we're just, you know, hoping for the best and we know that we're doing some good work, and that, that they are too and if we just partner together, and we can, you know, create it, create a strong recovery for the small business sector.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right on.
John Porter
Yeah
Michael LeBlanc
Well, so where can folks, we talked about retailcouncil.org, is that the best place to start to learn about BartePay? And I imagine you've got a website as well, where they can kind of like, how do people, I imagine when, when you first think about signing up for BarterPay, you kind of want to go to the site and see what the universe of possibilities are? Is that, is that typical for people as they try to understand the value proposition?
John Porter
Yes, it is typical and we want them to go look for retailers specifically, we created a special website at retail.barterpay.ca so, it's retail.barterpay.ca. It's the best place to go. We really want to have a one-on-one, 10, 15 minute discovery call with everybody that comes through because we don't want them to, you know, join if there's not a good fit. And so, it's a community that we're creating across Canada. So, we just wanna make sure there's a good fit. So, it's simple, just go through the website a little bit. There's some great testimonials there, some great videos, some press releases, some, you know, news media coverage and that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, the call to action is, you know, book a quick discovery call, it's easy. Click, click, click, zoom, zoom, book a zoom call, and we'll get on the phone. We'll determine if there's a fit. If there's a fit, we'll onboard you right away. If we don't feel there's a fit, then we'll just say, 'Hey, you know, we don't think there's a fit at this time'. So yeah, that's the best way to do it.
Michael LeBlanc
And your assessment of fit as you describe it as, basically, when someone calls you and say I have this type of merchandise, or this kind of idea, you'll kind of give them listen, that's, that's perfect for the platform, or maybe that's not the right fit for the platform. Is that the kind of discussion that you're talking about?
John Porter
Correct, yep, and also set their expectations of what they can get back and what they might be looking for. If somebody is looking to trade off a bunch of idle inventory, and then pay for their mortgage, or get fuel for their car, or, you know, pay their core wages to their staff or their rent, that's those are things that are going to be very difficult to barter for. So, it's, it's just making sure there's a fit on both sides. Number one, the marketability, marketability of their product, or products, that they have, but also what they're looking for, and making sure that we manage those expectations properly, and that everybody's going to win. Yeah, so that's kind of how we assess that.
Michael LeBlanc
What are the top three things that people barter for? I mean, you've talked about website development once or twice, like, is it, do you have a sense of, you know, if I'm a retailer, and I have physical stock, which is mostly the case amongst the members, they've got some physical stock like the jeweler did, what are the three most popular things that you find on a platform solve that or are bartered, so to speak?
John Porter
Yeah, for sure. So, there's a few key categories that we cover, and we're seeing a lot of transactions in the in these categories. Number one, retailers even buying from other retailers, obviously. But travel and tourism, you know, we're seeing a pickup in that from, from a local perspective. We really want to help that sector as well. Anything from hotels and golf, you know, attractions, that sort of thing. Construction and trades, plumbers, you know, roofers, electricians, drywallers and that sort of thing. Media and advertising whenever you can take your idle inventory and turn it into Barter Credits at retail value, and then get, you know, purchase advertising or media that can then drive more cash traffic through your door, that's a really great way to use Barter Credits. Professional services, whether it's accountants, lawyers, architects, engineers, that sort of thing. You know, health, health and wellness, anything from dental to optical to spas, massage therapy, you know. The restaurant and the food service industry. Then obviously, business services is huge, especially right now with the web development, marketing, advertising, eCommerce, you know, SEO consulting, all those sorts of services are huge, huge as well.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, it's a wider range than I had imagined initially, but I get, I get now, you know, maybe I've got some widgets and you can, you know, you can reserve a meeting space when we can all get back together and get that team together and get your team back in the same place off zoom and, and re, get reacquainted off the, off the camera. That's, I hadn't thought of that. But that's interesting. Right.
John Porter
Yup, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
So yeah, very interesting. And advertising and marketing. I guess that's where the local comes in handy as well, right? Whether it's, you know, whether it's, you know, if you're in Moncton and you want to talk to people in, in that community, you've got perhaps some, some media in there.
Alright, well, listen, it's been a great overview. I'm going to put links in the show notes to the other URLs that you mentioned, so that people can check the show notes. And in case you didn't get that written down. But listen, it's been, it's been great having you on the podcast John, we, you and I have been talking for a little bit. And finally, we get to we get together and thanks for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast.
John Porter
Thanks for having me, Michael. It really, really appreciate it.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. Leblanc & Company Inc. And, if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co. Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.