Trade route


Patrick Connors
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Not too long ago, Michael Morin sold a wedding ring from his Auburn jewelry shop to a local farmer for a summer’s worth of lettuce, corn, tomatoes and maple syrup.

It wasn’t his first trade. Morin, who runs the Jewelers’ Bench of Maine in Auburn, has swapped rings and necklaces for furniture too, and he says he’s in the market for a hot tub trade.

“”Barter,”” he says “”is just of fact of life in Maine.””

Now, Morin is looking to broaden his base of those willing to barter with him.

He’s one of more than 70 company owners in the area to join Merchants Barter Exchange, a company founded by Steve Bolles, who opened an office in Auburn in February.

Bolles estimates four to five local businesses have signed up for the service every day over the past week, adding to the more than 3,000 businesses around the world that already use his service.

Once in the exchange, businesses earn MBE Trade Credits (1 credit equals $1) with every “sale” of a good or service to another group member. The credits can be spent at any business within the MBE network.

For instance, if an auto repair company owner wanted a new a deck on his house, he could pay a contractor in the exchange with credits. The contractor would then have those credits saved in an MBE account to be used later for products or services from another member of the exchange.

“”So many people barter already, what this service allows you to do is trade with people you don’t normally have contact with,”” says Bolles.

The idea, he says, is for local businesses to also be able to use their credits at a hotel in California, for example, in addition to trading with local companies.

Typically, there is a sign-up fee to become a member of the exchange, but Bolles says he’s waived the cost for businesses in the Lewiston-Auburn area. MBE makes money by charging a 10 percent commission on every trade. If a business spends 200 credits in a month, for example, a $20 charge would be tacked to their monthly MBE statement.

For Morin, it’s worth every penny.

The barter agency finds the services and products he needs and facilitates the trade – legwork that, Morin says, offsets the 10 percent charge.

“”It’s fair, too,”” he says. “”A 10 percent finders’ fee is very common.””

MBE provides each of its clients with a personal broker who finds the items or services a client is looking for. The broker is also responsible for making sure the credit amount for a service is equivalent to its dollar amount.

Bolles says that’s easy to check at a restaurant, for example, where the price for something is listed on a menu. It’s harder to gauge with contractors who assign their own prices to services.

However, gouging rarely occurs, he says. If a company using the service is found to inflate its prices to get more in return for its trade, the business will be kicked out of the system.

So far, Bolles has focused on bringing more local companies into the network; actual trading through the company hasn’t taken off yet.

Duane Arnold, owner of Marco’s Restaurant in Lewiston, is one of several business owners from the area who has signed up for the service but hasn’t made an official MBE trade. He says he “”joined to see what happens.””

Arnold was attracted by the potential of using the credits with restaurant wholesalers from outside the region. The possibility of trading a catered party, for instance, for a new tiled floor at the restaurant also sounded appealing, he says.

Merchants Barter Exchange oversees between 500,000 and 700,000 trades a month, according to Bolles. That number has risen dramatically, he says, since he founded the company four years ago in northern New Jersey.

Bolles worked with another barter agency in Boston before starting his own firm. He says the dearth of similar companies in New Jersey prompted him to start the business.

What began as a small-time, “”kitchen-table”” operation is now a company with offices in five states and clients in 22.

If the economy continues to waver, Bolles expects the business to grow even more.

Historically, he says, organized barter in the United States explodes when the economy tumbles. Swapping goods and services, he explains, is ideal for companies that may not have the available cash or that have surplus product they need to get rid of.

Whatever the status of the economy, Bolles is confident about the future of his Auburn office. Success may be as simple as tapping into a barter economy that already has entrenched roots in Maine.

pconnors@sunjournal.com