Tradebank is a national barter exchange that allows clients to swap goods and services for 'trade dollars' that can be used with any of the members

In 2002, Dan Cusack had only recently entered Sudbury’s family restaurant business when he found customers asking if he accepted “trade dollars.” When he replied with a puzzled “No,” diners walked out the door.

The prospect of losing potential clients prompted him to investigate further, and that’s when Cusack learned about Tradebank, a bartering network that allows members to exchange goods for “trade dollars” instead of cash.

“Being new to the Sudbury market, I didn’t want to lose out on any market share or any clients, so I’d join anything if it meant putting people in my chairs,” said Cusack, who today owns three Gonga’s Grill restaurants in the Sudbury area.

“That’s exactly what Tradebank did for me,” he added. “Not even really knowing what I could trade for, I just set up an account, I started accepting trade dollars as a form of payment, and accumulating this trade dollar balance.”

Six years later, he purchased the Northern Ontario Tradebank franchise, brought on board Sandra Crawford as a partner, and today has 160 clients in Sudbury and North Bay. He remains a Tradebank client through his restaurant chain and does about $1,000 of trade annually.

The exchange is valuable for users on a number of fronts, Cusack said. It brings in new clients, who then spread the word about the business, leading to more customers; it also helps offset a business’s expenses by allowing it to use trade dollars instead of cash to purchase needed items and services.

Tradebank gives smaller businesses a bit of an edge against larger competitors, because there’s an entire network behind them offering support, he added.

“The whole idea is that we earn these trade dollars as a bonus to our regular revenue stream because we belong to this group,” Cusack said, “and we tend to want to use and support the other users that are in it for anything that we would normally require or go and spend our money on.”

As an example, Cusack could have a Tradebank client do $1,000 worth of renovations on his restaurant, which earns the contractor $1,000 in trade dollars. But the contractor isn’t limited to spending $1,000 at Cusack’s restaurant; he can spread that $1,000 in trade dollars around to any of the 160 members in the network.

“It’s not a one-on-one contra arrangement,” Cusack said. “It’s multi-directional.”

That includes spending trade dollars in other markets. Cusack said there are thousands of members across Canada with whom trade dollars can be spent.

There is a cost associated with membership. New members must pay a one-time signup fee of $495, which gets them a professional profile with Tradebank and an immediate $500 trade dollar credit in their account, which can be spread amongst members.

In addition, there is a $9.95 monthly service fee to maintain membership, and Tradebank makes a 13 per cent commission every time members spend their trade dollars.

Cusack said participating in a barter exchange isn’t for everyone, but it has its benefits.

“Certain stuff that you used to cut a cheque for, you can now use these trade dollars through this organization that’s now sending business to you,” he said. “So it’s very, very viable.”

The restaurateur now has his sights on expansion. He’d like to grow the Sudbury contingent to between 250 and 300 clients, and ideally will fan out to Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Timmins, where he said the Tradebank model can be duplicated very easily.

As a franchise owner and a client, Cusack notes his interest in Tradebank is twofold, since its success impacts his own business, and he hopes to help other Northern businesses grow, too.

“(Tradebank) puts me in front of a lot of different business owners, and I want them to believe in me that I can keep this barter exchange growing so that there’ll be more and more opportunities.”