Global Links Corp. (OTC:GLCO) has announced the acquisition of national business networking organization MainStreetChamber (MSC). MainStreetChamber develops and engages a wide network of business professionals in local marketplaces across the nation by offering free membership and networking events. Chapter presidents, who serve to promote business in their area, run MSC’s local groups. The company offers […]
New Internet Startup - My Trade Cart
I was informed of another internet direct bartering website start up, My Trade Cart, a couple of days ago. While I wasn’t able to access the site in any meaningful way (the login I created never worked), I did like one of the features described in the press release I received.
My Trade Cart is purely dedicated to offering users the opportunity to trade items or services with people in their network of friends. It operates as a fusion of eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook, providing a circle of trust for users with a comprehensive ratings system.
The ratings and feedback system is crucial to My Trade Cart’s survival in that it helps eliminate the obvious issue inherent with getting stiffed. My Trade Cart users are graded and ranked based off of their trades: if you get negative feedback, your overall rank falls off dramatically, and users will not want to trade with you again.
I would love to see this feature implemented in all barter software across the board. User generated ratings are a decades old approach to quality problems and the barter world would do well to catch up to the past.
On a peer to peer website such as this one, a ratings system makes sense. Anyone can sign up, and there is no hierarchy of responsibility. In a regular retail barter exchange, the businesses are paying members of that organization. They exchange owners are responsible for the quality of the members that are included in the exchange. If there is a problem, it is up to the owner/broker to mediate a fair outcome, leaving the ratings system out of it. To take it one step further, there is a network out there that does indeed have a ratings system. However, the owners of the exchanges artificially boost the ratings of there own members so they look better in the network. That does not make for an honest or worthwhile system. I equate it to the Linked In feature of ‘Recommendations.’ I have people I barely know recommending me for things I don’t even do. But I have a ton of recommendations in my profile. Do they mean anything? Nope.
That’s my 2 cents.
A barter exchange is a peer to peer system. They may pay for membership but all transactions are done peer to peer. A barter exchange owner can’t control the quality of every member in advance without strangling the path to membership, and even when they do there are sure to be fantastic or crappy businesses that get through. I think a broker mediated peer to peer ratings system makes sense. If a transaction goes bad and it is entirely one sided, there should be some feedback in the system. Reputation is what keeps people in small communities honest, and barter exchanges are small communities. I agree with you, when owners distort ratings or you have something like the solicited and pre-programmed LinkedIn recommendations, a rating system is meaningless. It only works when the ratings are honest and moderated.
PS I like your 2 cents.