Barter vs. Haggle: The Dead Giveaway

Many times when we tell someone new about barter or our new book The Art of Barter, he or she will immediately say, “Oh I hate to barter. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and I’m no good at it.” That’s a dead giveaway. We realize right away that the person we’re talking to has confused bartering with haggling. And to be sure, they are not the same.

Barter is the exchange of goods or services without the use of money. Haggling is negotiating a price for a good or service. How are they different? Here’s an example: When you go to a car dealership all ready to purchase a new vehicle, you probably dread dickering over the price with the salesperson. (If you love that, please let us know because we’re taking YOU with us the next time we have to buy a car.) All that back and forth makes most people nervous and uneasy; after all, you’re never sure you got the best possible price for the vehicle. In a nutshell, that negotiation is haggling.

If you were to walk into that same car lot with the intention to barter, you would have a very different experience. Before you went in you would have an idea of what sorts of goods and services you posses that might be useful to a car dealership. You would then ask to speak to the manager and explain that you’d like to trade your goods/services for a new ride. If you’re a mechanic, you could trade your skill in the repair shop. If you sell promotional products, you could trade coffee mugs, T-shirts or key chains with the dealership’s logo for your new wheels. That’s barter.

You may still end up haggling over the price of the vehicle because, let’s face it, rarely is the sticker price what the car is actually worth. Haggling is an integral part of the car purchase transaction. But you won’t haggle over the value of your mechanical skills or all those key chains. They have a set price and dickering isn’t part of that purchase. If the price you settle on for the car is $X, then the value of services/products you trade for your new wheels will be $X. That might mean you have to provide 1,000 hours of repair work or a few million little plastic key chains, but the value of those items will equal the price of the car.

Haggling can be part of barter. But barter doesn’t require haggling. So take a deep breath and relax. Bartering is way more fun than haggling and often the two won’t meet–not even for a blind date. Go ahead and give bartering a try. And leave that old haggle at home.