System and method for bartering items between two or more parties using a communications network in which each party accesses a central server via the communications network and provides a list of items they have to trade and want to obtain, a description of the items and any conditions for trade of the items. The lists are stored in a database and links indicating the party's possible trades are automatically created. A search for possible trades between the parties is undertaken using the links and the parties involved in each possible trade are notified to confirm the trade. Upon receipt of confirmation from each party, the trade is processed to completion. Weights may be assigned to the links, representing a degree of similarity between descriptions of items, whereby the search for possible trades is conducted based on the weights of the links.