eSay'er

If Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs are all a mystery to you then wouldn’t want to miss the next event!

2009-11-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

Last week, 28th October 2009, Paul Sage managing director of Click4Causes and Simon Parslow managing director of eSay-uk.com teamed up together to provide an event on the subject of Social Networking and the effect Social Media can have on fundraisers and charities alike.

Ian McKendrick, Simon Parslow Managing Director of eSay-uk.com, Lincoln Bedeau and Damien O’Dwyer were guest speakers throughout the day.

Ian McKendrick talked about combining traditional marketing techniques with the latest social networking developments like Twitter and Facebook to help businesses produce strategic marketing plans that really work.

Simon Parslow’s aim of the day was to educate fundraisers of all shapes and sizes that they too can benefit from a shift in consumer buying habits. The ever changing cycle of money in circulation means that to survive fundraisers must be aware of the opportunities that exist and be willing to embrace new technology and what it can bring. This is the core concept behind eSay-uk.com which is an online eTailer with a difference.

Lincoln Bedeau is a firm believer in the use of video for communication on the web in today’s fast growing technological world. He spoke of the benefits if using video content and how successful this is. As managing director of askMK.TV (the internet television site for Milton Keynes), and most recently askBrango.com, a safe and sound social network video platform for the educational sector, Lincoln has worked on numerous projects using video to improve traffic to websites and create short films for voluntary organisations to publicise their community based work.

Damien O’Dwyer talked about the power of helping local business' get access to the latest thinking and advice in order to promote their organisation online. He has been dedicated to helping organisations for over 5 years with their internet marketing specialising on the use of Google's search engine. Damien outlined what Google Ad words is, how it is beneficial to fundraisers and charities and also the funding that may be available to such organisations through ‘Google Grants’.

To keep informed of similar future events, please visit Click4Causes website. Alternatively you can visit eSay-uk.com and support your favourite charities and causes.

What makes a winner

2009-10-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

eSay-uk.com is proud to announce to our customers that Lisa Warner, the creator behind 'Fink' cards has won the 02 x Female Entrepreneur of the year awards.

We are pleased to support Lisa and her brand, FINK (Family Interaction Nurtures Kids). FINK cards enable parents to better communicate with their children and teenagers through use of the FINK styled question game cards.

Read the inspirational story of how Lisa created FINK cards

So what makes a winner?
Undoubtedly, you have to have a real passion for your product and this is certainly true of Lisa.

Listen here to hear what she had to say after she won her award.

We wish Lisa every success in the future and look forward to continually supporting her as an individual and her brand.

View the entire FINK range and buy online

The ultimate mum-to-be and baby pampering giveaway

2009-09-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

We all know how precious our babies are and how delicate their skin is, in fact we all long to have that baby smooth skin, well now we might be able to achieve this...

At www.eSay-uk.com we have teamed up with the Cosy Shopper and Erbaorganics and are pleased to offer a joint promotion and the chance to win one Erbaorganics mum-to-be kit along with one Erbaorganics baby kit worth over £40 each month* when you buy the Cosy Shopper until further notice.

Erbaorganics is the ultimate luxury in mum-to-be and baby pampering. Mum-to-be and baby pampering I hear you say?! Yes that’s correct.

As novel as this may sound, Erbaorganics specialises in organic baby products for you and your baby and the entire range is USDA certified organic.

With soothing ingredients such as lavender, chamomile and calendula found within the baby products and calming rosemary, lavender and geranium found within the mum-to-be products, this really is the ultimate way to protect and nourish you little ones skin and achieve that baby smooth skin you have always longed for.

The Cosy Shopper is an innovative seat cover which guarantees to transform cold, dirty supermarket trolley bucket seats. The cover protects and keeps your baby warm and dry whilst shopping. Made with double lined fleece the seat cover comes with a matching blanket and is available in a range of colours and patterns.

The Cosy Shopper is machine washable and will keep your baby warm, dry, safe, clean and of course cosy while shopping!

Click here to view the entire range of both the Cosy Shopper and Erbaorganics or visit www.eSay-uk.com

Both products make for the most perfect baby shower gift or gift for the expectant mum and newborn...

Lisa's Good Finking!

2009-09-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

As a child, Lisa Warner was nervous and awkward, "I hated socialising and was very shy. When I had children I knew more than anything that I wanted them to be confident and not afraid to talk to others".

Who would have thought that the negative feelings Lisa Warner experienced as a young child, would go on to have a positive lasting effect on the rest of her life. Lisa Warner's strong will to not have her children grow up feeling shy and nervous to talk to others was the inspiration behind what we have come to know today as 'Fink' cards.

The cards are simply designed to get families and individuals of all ages and backgrounds talking...

The heart warming part to this story is that the Warner family created Fink based on homemade cards that Lisa had made her four children when they were younger to encourage them to openly converse without feeling awkward or shy - feelings Lisa had once experienced as a young child. The result was a group of confident, lively, happy communicators!

With the homemade additions of 'Fink' a success, Lisa Warner decided to launch 'Fink' in September 2008 as a product aimed at families.

The cards were an instant hit!

Delighted Lisa decided to then expand the product offering by extending the range from the Family edition. To date, the 'Fink' range includes: The Fink Teen edition, Goal Posts (a motivational tool for teens) and The Fink Wedding Edition.

Within just a short period of time, the Warner family’s inspiration has transformed the way parents and children communicate. The adaptation of the product to cater for weddings has also paved the way as a fun ice-breaker!

Lisa Warner was passionate about her goal in life to raise confident children and this certainly paid off, eSay-uk.com is proud to support Lisa Warner and in turn support the growth of her brand.

Lisa Warner’s passion and creation of an innovative product has resulted in her been shortlisted in the 02 Awards Female Entrepreneur of the Year. You can support Fink as a brand and really back Lisa Warner by voting for her. Voting is easy and Lisa’s profile in on the CENTRAL region page

Click here to visit the 02 Awards website and vote for Lisa

Our featured fundraiser - Willen Hospice

2009-09-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

Willen Hospice offers specialist physical, emotional, spiritual and practical support to people with life limiting conditions, at differing stages of the illness.

eSay-uk.com supports Willen Hospice through their social market place allowing customers to support the brands they love and benefit the causes they care most about.

Read more on Willen Hospice

An Inspirational Story

2009-08-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

For Lisa Penn, the day she set out on her weekly shopping trip back in April 2005 was a day she will never forget, for it really was a life changing experience. One she hadn't bargained for at a supermarket...

Buy one, get one free, price match promise, 50% off - these are offers we expect to find at your local supermarket but for Lisa Penn, mother of two, she was offered something she really wasn't expecting - one supermarket baby bucket seat full of dried bird muck and the other bucket seat full of grime!

As she reached into her bag for the baby wipes, Lisa really had had enough. "I had to keep cleaning the baby bucket seats every time I visited the supermarket. I found the seats were cold, hard and uncomfortable for babies to sit in and were not very clean". (Lisa Penn)

At that moment in time, Lisa came up with the idea of the Cosy Shopper which has revolutionised the way mums shop today. “I had no business experience and I was a full time mum. A frustrated mum! Through frustration and a passion for my children, I was able to create the Cosy Shopper”. (Lisa Penn)

The Cosy Shopper is exactly what it says it is - a cosy way of transporting your baby around in the existing cold supermarket bucket seats.

The Cosy shopper lines the bucket seat and enables you to strap your little one inside and then cover them with a matching blanket, thus keeping them warm, dry, safe, clean and of course cosy while walking up the colder aisles in the supermarket.

What's more is Lisa's invention can also be used to line baby car seats too, making them far easier to clean as you can simply strip the cosy shopper off and put in the washing machine.

Lisa believes in quality and so each Cosy Shopper is handmade! Both the blanket and the actual seat cover is made using double lined fleece, nothing less for your precious little one. And in between uses, you can keep the Cosy Shopper clean and dry as all Cosy Shoppers are supplied in an easy to carry PVC drawstring bag.

What a wonderful story of how this well thought out product came to be with us today, invented by a mum who truly cares about our little ones. Since its launch in 2007, the Cosy Shopper has been a best seller (not to mention a finalist in the London heats for the 'Mumpreneur 2008 Awards' on ITV's "The Morning Programme"), evidence that this really is an essential product for all mums out there.

Lisa has also submitted The Cosy Shopper into the BBC’s Dragons Den online this year, her original pitch demo can be seen at Dragons Den online.

Watch this space to see how Lisa gets on with the Dragons when it will be aired during September of this year.

eSay-uk.com is proud to fully support Lisa Penn and in turn support the growth of her brand, which did we mention, is a favourite for many celebrity mums. You too can become part of this very emotive success story helping a great brand grow, keeping your baby warm and earning yourself through the eSay-uk.com referral model.

As seen on Dragons Den - Become brand ambassadors with eSay-uk.com, even when the Dragons may not invest!

2009-07-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

At eSay-uk.com we never let a good thing pass us by, that’s why we proudly offer a route to market for all the entrepreneurial people out there, who mustered up the courage to approach the Dragons on the BBC TV series ‘Dragons Den’.

We pride ourselves on helping entrepreneurial people change their life and inspire ours by giving consumers the chance to support the brands they love with or without the ‘investment’ from the Dragons.

With the 2009 series on the horizon, and online pitches taking place as you are reading this, now is the time to join www.eSay-uk.com and become a member of this
growing phenomenon.

You can show your support for good, home-grown British inventions even if the dragons don’t! There are many heart warming products been pitched online: Click here to visit the Dragons Den online site

Lisa Penn is one lady who has an online pitch on ‘Dragons Den’ with her ‘Cosy Shopper’ baby product. Will the dragons invest come September? Whatever the outcome, we at eSay-uk.com have already fallen in love with the Cosy Shopper and are pleased to announce that the entire range is available at www.eSay-uk.com, after all we never let a good thing pass us by.

Who needs investment? Loyal brand ambassadors are what they need – namely, ordinary people like you and I who can now buy online at www.eSay-uk.com

Visit our website to read Lisa’s heart warming story of success. A woman dedicated in her commitment to changing the way parents shop for the better.

Through our referral model we can all share in the success of entrepreneurial people like Lisa Penn despite the current climate we find ourselves in.

Julie Bolah
Marketing Communications Manager
eSay-uk.com

eSay-uk.com - you can start helping the causes and charities you care about

2009-06-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

eSay-uk.com is about recommendation, the brands we sell have all given us a marketing fund to share out with people like you.

If you haven’t been recommended by someone that you know then you are free to nominate a charity of your choice who will receive the referral bonus from your purchase.

The great part is this won't cost you a penny and you can support the charities you choose (and get the recognition from them as your name will be listed in their monthly statement form eSay-uk.com)

eSay-uk.com now has over 20,000 charities to choose from, Yes 20,000! and the list is still growing (don’t forget to confirm your declaration for gift aid tax to be claimed by your chosen registered charity which adds a further 28%).

To find your favourite charities simply log into your back office and go to ‘Charitable Links’ and search for them by typing in their name (or even part of their name), then simply link yourself to them. This will save you time in the shopping cart as you can choose quickly from the charities you’d like to benefit.

It’s as easy as that! eSay-uk.com – helping you, help the charities of your choice

PS. Don’t forget that charities can continue to benefit from the ongoing referrals made by you and your friends as the network continues to grow, and we are happy to work with fundraisers of any size just ask them to register at eSay-uk.com if they are not already listed.

How to help your favourite brands grow and prosper through word of mouth referrals

2009-06-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

So you buy a product that you just love, in fact you always buy products bearing that name as you have grown to trust and respect that name. Right at that very moment in time you are the best advert for that brand, better then any glossy magazine advert or high profile TV commercial.

What now? So, what’s in it for you? Well here at eSay-uk.com, we have come up with a genius idea... ecommerce with a social dimension.

‘Social marketing’ is the new ‘brand marketing’ and here at eSay-uk.com we are embracing this new dimension. You too can be involved. All you need to do is talk! It’s as simple as that.

As a ‘typical’ consumer who has brought the product that you just love, you will likely tell your friends about it, or they may even ask you about it. eSay-uk.com enables you to buy online and then recommend the products you love to others who may in turn learn to love them too.

Your friend likes your new simple Breo watch*, they ask where you brought it from. Instead of saying “eSay-uk.com” you can offer to send them a link to the website (thus referring them).
Going back to my point made earlier manufacturers usually spend thousands of pounds promoting their products by using expensive marketing, the glossy magazines adverts, the high profile commercials, well now eSay-uk.com readdress this balance and redistributes some of this money back to the people who can make a difference; you and I.

Join eSay-uk.com today and help your favourite brands grow and prosper through word of mouth referrals
*Breo watches available in a range of colours and sizes, for more information log onto www.esay-uk.com

Power to the people

2009-01-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

Brands brands brands.....

That’s what it’s all about in today’s product market. Hundreds of millions of pounds spent on securing the right advertising, the annoying adverts that most of us either ignore by making a cup of tea between programmes or have stuck in our head for days afterwards. But do they really influence our choice to buy? Or is it really the people that we trust who recommend what we buy? Magazines, critics....friends?

Word of mouth is where the money is. That’s what really gives the brands power and we’ve harnessed it. e-say is about giving you the voice to be able to make the right brands heard and give you and your friends rewards for being their biggest ambassador.

It’s as simple as 1,2,3 or indeed A,B,C

You buy a product you like from the e-say
You recommend it to a few friends who you think might also be in the market for that product
You earn money for your effort

So join the e-say revolution now. We have some of the most innovative new brands and products that are willing to pay you for doing what you do best – shopping and telling your friends about it. And the best thing is that each of those companies has worked out how much they could save on marketing by paying you to recommend their products instead and they get a much bigger return on their investment. So guess what? We’re all quids in!

e-say launches early in 2009 and you guys are the first to join the revolution. Who knows...by buying through e-say you could even make back the money you spend on your products!
And if you don’t want the money we even give you the option to donate it to the charity of your choice so even they could end up benefiting from the e-say revolution.
So sign up to e-say now and give brand power to the people who matter.
YOU!

www.esay-uk.com

A brief chat about how e-say can benefit you and your favorite charities..

2009-01-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

What's this e-say all about?
e-say is an online social market place and we sell things that people want to buy,
our web site address is www.esay-uk.com

There’s nothing revolutionary with that, so what’s your angle?
We work directly with manufacturers and suppliers to develop their brands supplying you with a vast array of good quality products

Yes and?
We have built a unique web experience which provides you with an unparalleled service making your satisfaction our main priority..

OK, but that’s still not unique...
We believe that manufacturers should be paid more for their products so they can give you the best service, and apart from that more profit will mean new product developments and secure jobs...

Very admirable but what’s in it for me?
Of course we insist on giving you the best service as we expect that from our suppliers; however we have negotiated with them to provide a marketing fund for every product we sell through e-say...

So what happens to this money?
I am glad you asked me that,,we give it all away,,,to you, your friends and your favourite charities..

So how does this work?
e-say is built on satisfied customers who recommend products they have purchased to one another, this is no different than if your recommend a restaurant or good book to someone you know, the only difference is you will be rewarded for it through e-say...

OK so instead of paying for expensive adverts, a brand will offer an incentive for my recommendation?
Absolutely a satisfied customer is the best advert a brand could ever have, now with e-say there is a transparent and ethical way for brand ambassadors to be rewarded. Clearly manufacturers value your custom and they want to incentivise you to tell others about how good their product or service is..

OK so in principal I understand, but it sounds quite complex will I have to remember who I referred to?
Our web site has been designed to show you all of the information you will need, we took 2 years to design our system to track and report all of the activity in your members area, any referrals you have made will be shown, and any bonuses resulting from sales will be clearly visible..

So how do I get paid for any successful referrals I make?
At the moment you can withdraw funds through Pay Pal, soon we will introduce a new cash card program which will allow you to pre load your bonuses onto a debit card and use this in the same way you would use a normal debit card. We are also adding a BACS feature which will allow direct bank transfers, and finally you can donate money directly to charity if you wish.

So I can support charities by using e-say as well?
Absolutely, as mentioned above you can make donations to them directly from your own bonuses, but you can also choose them as your referrer when you buy products from e-say yourself. This means that the charity will now be eligible for ongoing referral bonuses.

So how does this work?
Every product sold through e-say has a marketing allowance built into it, if you respond from a recommendation from a friend or relative then they are eligible for this, but if you buy a product without being recommended then by default e-say will give this money to a charity, you just have to tell us which one..!

How do I nominate a charity that I’d like to benefit, and is this system open to all fundraising organisations?
In your e-say member back office area we have created a section called ‘Charitable links’. Here you can search our database for the organisations you like and link yourself to them. Then simply nominate these charities during the referral or donation process. e-say has no restrictions on the size or type of fundraising organisations which can benefit from this system, a fundraiser would simply register their organisation using the fundraiser registration form on our web site.

You mentioned that a charity can benefit from ongoing referral bounses, what did you mean by that?
e-say has created a referral tree program that pays referral bonuses down to 5 levels of recommendation from the originator, this means that charities can benefit from the ongoing process of referral which could amount to a significant income possibility for them .

Does this mean that any referrals I make could pay me to 5 levels as well?
Yes..

So how does a charity get paid?, and can Gift Aid tax be claimed by them?
Every month the e-say server will send charitable organisations a statement for all the donations and referral donations made to them by e-say members. The Charity would then simply send an invoice to e-say and we will send them a cheque. Every e-say member has the ability to nominate if they are eligible for Gift Aid tax and those donations will be segregated within the monthly statement.

OK this all sound too good to be true, so where’s the catch?
You are the catch, because it’s your decision what to do next. e-say has provided the frame work for all of this to happen but you have to make the choice whether to change your buying habits and start benefiting both yourself and your favourite fundraising organisations.

Banks need to back SME’s in the UK

2009-01-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

Great Britain is about Great Business and as a nation we amongst the most entrepreneurial of societies, yet our banks and financial institutions treat small businesses and new start ups with complete contempt.

To me they seem to have business banking the wrong way round. When a company is successful it moves up the bank manager hierarchy and is allocated someone who actually knows about business. However when you walk in as a SME or a start up you are allocated a business bank advisor who normally is little more than a glorified admin clerk (quite often with no knowledge of running a business).

If you take a look at the statistics of British businesses in 2008 of the 2.6 million companies in the UK over 68% of the have less than 5 employees with less that 1% employing over 1000 people. Given that the back bone of the UK economy is being supported by very small companies, surely the banks owe it to themselves to give the very best advisors to this end of the market?. After all when a company grows to a size where it employs hundreds of people, then surely it has a financial director and board members who already know how to run a business?.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a bank decided to deploy it's top business bank managers to work with SME’s and help them build their businesses with qualitative business advice, could the UK economy be better off as a result?.

Politicians agree

2009-01-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

The prime minister said “2009 should be about preparing jobs and infrastructure for the future”. We couldn’t agree more, e-say is about profit and the reinvestment of that profit into new jobs and new opportunities. e-say restores the balance of buying, putting the consumer in control and driving brand loyalty on the quality and service from that company.

He continued by saying; "The scale of the challenges we face is matched by the strength of my optimism that the British people can and will rise to meet them”. Exactly, it’s all about us,,, people working together to build a better future for everyone. The ever decreasing spiral of margin erosion exerted by major retailers in the UK is killing the high street, and subsequently our consumer economy has been built on turnover alone. Obvious casualties now litter our high street, but this activity has been going on for years, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Manufacturers and suppliers need to make profit to employ people, these are the same people who are buying products from the shops. Eventually this whirlwind of consumerism would implode; I guess that’s what happened in 2008.

However Gordon Brown is optimistic; "Because we're not a do nothing people and we've always risen to every challenge, we can meet the security challenge, the environmental challenge and the enormous economic challenge." . Good point-well put old boy,,with true British grit we will live to fight another day. Something has got to change companies need to make some money to keep all of us employed so we can buy things and be able to pay our mortgages. As taxpayers we now collectively own a few banks so as shareholders of these companies it is in our interest to make sure the banks customers can pay their way.

On the other side of the political fence Mr Cameron also said the Conservatives had a duty to offer its vision of what type of economy and society it wanted to build, were it to come to power.
The bedrock, he said, should be "responsible government and responsible business" with an emphasis on lower taxes, less state interference and sustainable growth. This seems like a good idea, ‘sustainable growth’ should be about building brands and companies back to their former glory, it’s up to us we have the choice.

We now have the vehicle to do just that, e-say connects companies with consumers, and consumers with each other. It’s time to join the social marketplace revolution; you can be rewarded for your loyalty, and suppliers and manufactures can once again prosper, between us we can turn the tide of this economic retreat, join us.

Retailers are sucking the lifeblood out of UK businesses

2008-10-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

So how is it to be a supplier to national retail accounts in the UK today?. Having spent 7 years as a director of new product development, and servicing many national accounts which are household names, I can assure you it is not much fun for UK suppliers right now.

Margins are forever under attack, and it is customary for national accounts to demand price support should their competitors decide to reduce their prices….even after a sell in price has been agreed, it is not uncommon to be on the receiving end of a phone call to demand price support.

Most national accounts demand SOR (sale or return) so it makes no difference if you accept their terms or not, as you would simply receive the stock shipped back to you at your expense anyway.

Buyers are rotated annually so that any form of relationship between supplier and customer is short lived, some of the buyers are not the nicest people to deal with (this comment has been edited as we did not wish to use explicit language). Most retailers today have an aggressive direct sourcing strategy and many UK suppliers have been sidestepped by the retailer approaching factories in China themselves. Most UK suppliers have to provide the name and address of their factories on the forms which have to be completed as part of a product set up process into a national retailer.

Some retailers have created lowest bid auctions where suppliers are asked to bid each other down in an every decreasing spiral of price erosion, this faceless process just undermines the supply chain and forces suppliers to eventually work for nothing

In a time where major retailers announce record profits year on year, its worth considering that some of this success comes at the price of the suppliers which feed it. I know of many suppliers who cannot sustain a UK business based on these terms and have drastically reduced their work force in the UK as a result.

So who have been the winners of this aggressive business strategy?, you could argue that consumers have benefitted by lower prices, however is it completely necessary to sell a DVD player for £14.95?, I don’t think so. This has created a disposable culture where products are just discarded in lieu of new ones; there is simply no money left to offer any back up or service to customers.

UK suppliers have been forced to make job redundancies as their products have been replaced by direct sourced items, so is progressively lowering retail prices helping the UK job market?, I think not.

My conclusion having worked around the biggest national retailers in the UK is that they are akin to being legalised rackets, what appears to be a respectable shop front on the outside, hides activities behind the scenes which can only be described as potentially destructive. Don’t always believe the marketing strap lines from these companies, ask UK suppliers about their experiences, we have all heard the stories of UK farmers who understand fully what I am talking about.