The disadvantage of using barter is that it depends on the mutual coincidence of needs. Before any transaction will be undertaken, the needs of one person must mirror the needs of another person. If you have an surplus of goats and need more wheat, you must find someone that has a surplus of wheat and needs more goats. To overcome this mutual coincidence problem, intermediaries developed that would store, trade, and warehouse commodities.

Barter becomes more and more difficult when more people become dispossesed of the means of production. For example, if money was made completely worthless somehow in the United States, most people would have nothing of value to trade for food (since the farmer can only use so many cars, etc.).