From today, anyone wishing to advertise on Stallfinder will be able to pay using PayPal. The bank which handles all our credit and debit card transactions, WorldPay, have enabled PayPal transactions as part of the payment process.
We hope you find this useful as many people are still concerned about using their personal credit or debit cards online.
Third Sector Forums is a friendly online community for UK charity professionals, volunteers and social entrepreneurs. The forums are a place for people to network, learn, debate and discuss third sector issues. Categories include funding, fundraising, governance, legal issues, internet, marketing, campaigns, social enterprise and more. While the forums are third sector focused, private and public professionals are welcome too. The forums are 100% free to use and run by volunteers.
The forums were founded by Ross McCulloch who has a background in education, community planning, has run his own business and is now developing a partnership between three Lanarkshire charities. Ross also volunteers for Scottish Community Foundation and sits on the Big Lottery Fund's Fair Share Scotland Panel. More recently, Ross has started writing a third sector blog for the Sunday Mail .
http://www.thirdsectorforums.co.uk/
Need to give your business that extra boost in the run up to Christmas? Did you know that a Premium Listing service is available on http://www.stallfinder.com/?
Stallfinder is delighted to announce that Noodle Jewellery is the latest Direct Sales Company to join the Stallfinder Partner Programme. Partners benefit from a dedicated Partner page where they can give a detailed description of their products and services and they can also explain the business opportunity they offer.
Noodle is a young and exciting jewellery company and we already have two "Noodlers" on www.stallfinder.com. They are already benefitting from the special extended listing period which Stallfinder offers to Partner Programme listees.
If you are interested in your company joining our Partner Programme, please drop us a line to info@stallfinder.com.
Stallfinder was recently contacted by Griffin Designs to help them to promote their products to event organisers. Karen at Griffin Designs came across Stallfinder through our friends at Giant Potential. Griffin Designs' products are perfect for the sort of event organisers who use Stallfinder as a resource, but a normal stallholder listing wasn't quite what was needed to help them to grow their business.
We worked with Karen to establish the best spot on http://www.stallfinder.com/ for her advertisement to attract the attention of event organisers who visit the site. We also created a banner ad based on her own logo, font and colour scheme.
To find out more about the re-usable, re-designable advertising banners available from Griffin Designs, go to www.griffindesigns.co.uk/banners or call Karen on 01243 528384.
Caroline Parker of The Dales Party Company (incorporating Party Sprite and Cari's Giftshop) is our Featured Stallholder.
This is a new regular feature on Stallfinder, designed to give our stallholders an opportunity to promote their business.
For more details visit http://www.stallfinder.com/featured-stallholder-c750.html
In dot.life - a blog about technology from BBC News, Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC's technology correspondent ponders the future of blogging in the wake of the likes of Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. A recent Wired article suggested that blogs now look "so 2004".
To read in full visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/10/is_blogging_dead.html
The closing date for the following MumsClub competition is on November 1st.
"Congratulations on Finding the UK’s search for the most creative New Business idea for a mum!The competition is aimed at anyone who fancies winning the prizes – women, mums or business mums – it is simply a competition to win great prizes.
Have you always wondered about starting your own business working from home? Do you think you have an original, creative, or unique idea for a business? Enter the MumsClub competition to see if you will be voted most creative/unique business idea by mums already in business working from home.
PLUS! Our thanks go to entrepreneur Peter Jones who has donated our special prize for an established Mumpreneur to demonstrate how she intends to expand her business over the next 5 years.
If our panel of judges choose your idea, you’ll have access to top prizes to help make your business a success, as well as great prizes for your family, all supplied by Mum’s currently running business from home, and are MumsClub members.
We hope that as well as coming up with what could be the UK’s most creative new business idea, you’ll be inspired and encouraged to go for it yourself, if of course, you haven’t already!
You can enter as many ideas as you like, all that we receive will form part of a new section on our website to provide further inspiration and ideas for future visitors to the site so if you want a personal mention or credit for the idea then be sure to give us your website address for a link back.
All entrants must supply their creative idea for a new business, it can be a single line, or one sentence but in no more than 300 words. If you need any inspiration for your entry simply take a look at our marketplace and our forums to see what mumpreneurs are already doing...see if you can do better!
Good luck and we hope you’ll have fun, both with this competition, and the prizes!
Download the entry form from our prizes page! The closing date for all applications is November 1st 2008. Winners will be announced December 1st 2008".
Full details at http://www.mumsclub.co.uk/html/competition.html
Alison Rothwell of Arabella Miller appeared on This Morning's Mumpreneur competitition earlier this morning. She gave a great pitch to Fern and Phil about her organic clothes for kids business. She now urgently needs votes - lines close at midday today.
The number to call to vote for Alison is 09016 16 13 03
Update
Sadly Alison missed out on this occasion but I'm sure there'll be plenty more success to come.
Just spotted the following information about Small Business Week 2008
Helping UK businesses compete and thrive
During the week of October 13, 2008, a range of government, business and independent organisations will come together to celebrate the country's 4.6 million small businesses.As part of the week, a wealth of resources and advice will be available to help businesses make the most of opportunities available to them and their staff.Helping UK businesses compete and thrive
During the week of October 13, 2008, a range of government, business and independent organisations will come together to celebrate the country's 4.6 million small businesses.As part of the week, a wealth of resources and advice will be available to help businesses make the most of opportunities available to them and their staff.
Small Business Week promises to be a dynamic and eventful week, bringing together businesses, government agencies and advice organisations in a wide range of events and discussions in locations across the UK.The week will debate the issues that affect the small business community and seek to develop ways to support its long-term success. It will also provide businesses with access to invaluable resources and advice specifically designed to help them compete and thrive.
For more details visit http://www.sbw08.co.uk/
If you haven't yet discovered Hubsite's Website Grader to evaluate your website, have a go as the report makes interesting reading. The link to Website Grader to evaluate your own site is
http://www.websitegrader.com/
Stallfinder got a score of 83 - our report can be seen here.
http://www.websitegrader.com/wsgid/1649760/default.aspx
According to the results we're in the top 4.81% of all websites for traffic. We have a few areas to work on but we're pretty pleased with our score so far.
Pitch-finding website for small traders
Small traders that rely on fairs, outdoor markets, and festivals will find Stallfinder useful for identifying events at which they can market their wares. The site is ideal for businesses involved in food, antiques, crafts, clothing, jewellery and handmade toys.
To read more on EnterpriseQuest, go to www.enterprisequest.com.
Stallfinder is pleased to announce another company which has joined the Stallfinder Partner Programme.
Chocolates for Chocoholics was founded in 1986 by Roger & Liz Cossey importing and selling quality chocolates. The first Chocolate Parties they did were based on traditional Party Plan concepts but they rapidly evolved into their current system of supplying chocolates and gifts to self employed Distributors. These are entrepreneurs who run their own business buying, marketing and selling the Chocolates for Chocoholics range of products.
From today, if you are a Distributor for Chocolates for Chocoholics, you will benefit from a beneficial advertising rate. We look forward to adding lots of you to our extensive directory of stallholders in the near future.
We will be featuring one of our stallholders who has an interesting story to tell about their business, how they got started, what advice they'd give anyone else looking to start their own business etc. This will be a regular feature and will give you the chance to promote yourself, and your business in more detail. If you would like the chance to be featured, please contact Gail gail@stallfinder.com.
Thanks to everyone who pointed out that our county list for Wales was out of date. We've made the following changes:
Added: Monmouthshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Wrexham, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy, Anglesey, Pembrokeshire, South Wales*
* We could have added each of the South Wales cities and county boroughs separately, but decided it was probably better to group them under "South Wales" so that Stallholders and Events would be more easily found.
Removed: Cardiff, Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Glamorgan (Mid, South, and West)We hope this makes navigating by county in Wales much easier to use and welcome any feedback.
We recently received a business listing from Greenfinder. Greenfinder is a directory of businesses with strong eco-credentials, and also an events diary for green events nationwide. As we're both Warwickshire based "finder" websites, we've agreed to work together to benefit members of both our sites.
The biggest challenge any new website faces is trying to get lots of visitors to come to the site. Stallfinder has grown steadily every single month, in terms of visitors, page views, events and listings and we want to keep things moving in the right direction. The more people who come to the site, the more successful your businesses and events will become. To help achieve this, we're using as many of the networking sites as possible on the internet and we'd urge you to support this. Two ways you can do so are:
1. Facebook - Come and visit the Stallfinder Facebook page and become a fan
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Stallfinder/21536403742
or come and join the Stallfinder Group
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16239943123
2. StumbleUpon - This is a really great way to find sites on the internet that you'll love but you never knew existed. Also, if you give the thumbs up to a site you like using StumbleUpon, lots of other Stumblers will get to know about that site. So please, Stumble Stallfinder!
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
Congratulations to Alison Rothwell of Arabella Miller who has made it into the Semi-Finals of This Morning's Mumpreneur competition. Alison and her company have been working with us since shortly after she launched her agent programme in April and we're delighted she's doing so well. You can read more about the competition on the ITV website...
http://www.itv.com/Lifestyle/ThisMorning/features/Mumpreneur001/Manchester012/default.html
We've been working really hard throughout the Summer to add more events to our database. As of today, there are now 480 events on Stallfinder and many of the new events we've added are for 2009 so you should be able to contact the event organisers early and hopefully book a space.
Even so, we're still looking to add more events, especially outside of England. In spite of a big effort, we still need lots more events in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so please spread the word that events can be added to Stallfinder free of charge.
We're delighted to say that our partnerships with Miglio, Barefoot Books and Captain Tortue will be continuing. During our launch, these companies were kind enough to promote us to their members and those members benefitted from some special offers. If you are thinking of joining Stallfinder and you represent one of these companies, you will now benefit from our ongoing special offers. Head Office at each of these companies has details of our agreements, but as long as you mention them in your sign-up process, we'll make sure you get the benefit of these offers.
If the company you represent isn't one of these four, but you think partnering with Stallfinder would be a good idea, please contact us and we'll be happy to explore ideas.Stallfinder can help Direct Sales Companies in many ways by:
We've had some great feedback from stallholders and event organisers so we've added a Testimonials page. If you would like to add your comments please contact Gail via gail@stallfinder.com.
Any of you who've added a listing or event to Stallfinder so far will have done so free-of-charge. Events are, and will remain, free to add as we hope to encourage event organisers to promote their events with us and make the Stallfinder Events Diary THE place on the net for stallholders to find stalls. From today, anyone wishing to add a stallholder business listing will be asked to pay £10 a year - a price which we hope you'll agree represents exceptional value.
We are using WorldPay to process the transactions. They can accept pretty much any credit or debit card commonly used in the UK and process the transaction with your card company on our behalf. The transaction is safe and secure and in the near future, they will also be implementing the "Verified by Visa" and MasterCard "SecureCode" systems to further enhance security.
We've tested the system thoroughly and are confident that it should be easy to use, robust and reliable, but we'd be very grateful if you'd drop us a quick line to info@stallfinder.com to let us know how the transaction process went. In this way, any problems can be ironed out as quickly as possible.
If you're unhappy about using your credit or debit card over the internet, please get in touch and we'll arrange to take your payment by alternative means.
Well, I managed to complete the walk on Saturday, although it turned out to be nearer 28 miles than 25. We started from Leek at 7.20 in the morning and the first group came in around 6.30 that evening. 20 people managed the entire walk, one was lost to an ankle injury and 5 others were just plain lost. They actually got home first having missed out a chunk on the walk, but we forgave them.
We're still waiting for the totals to come in and I'll update the blog with the final number later. I'm just pleased to have managed the walk with only one minor blister and the usual aches and pains. Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far, and if you haven't, it's not too late.
http://www.justgiving.com/pacewalk2008
The picture on the left shows me gasping for breath climbing a particularly steep slope at about 11am. If you know the area, this is just south of the A54, near the famous Cat & Fiddle pub west of Buxton.
As promised, we now have a dedicated page for PartiCraft, the brand new crafts party plan business which launched in February 08. PartiCraft provides training to new demonstrators on how to start and run their business, no matter whether you are an arts and crafts novice or an expert. Stallfinder is delighted to welcome Lois and her team to Stallfinder and we hope to be able to provide details of a PartiCraft demonstrator in all areas of the UK before much longer.
Those of you living within the Warwickshire area may have spotted a news item on Stallfinder on page 3 of this month's Business Focus included with the Courier. We are also appearing in several charity newsletters and bulletins and hope to receive more press coverage soon. If you would like to help promote Stallfinder by adding a link to our site or by using one of our news items or press releases please contact us at info@stallfinder.com
As well as our Launch Partners, we have been actively working to promote Stallfinder to a wider audience so that event organisers visiting our site will benefit from a broader choice of local stallholders in their area. Also, as new stallholders come on board, we hope they will add to our events database. In that way they can promote their event to a wider audience, increase its chances of success for both themselves and the organisers and share the success of the event with other stallholders on the site.
This week, we'd like to welcome representatives of Magic Fairy Wings and Particraft.
Magic Fairy Wings have a great range of baby products and children's toys available through their growing network of consultants nationwide. Thanks to Debbie and Alison at MFW - we really look forward to seeing more of their team on the site soon.
We only learned about Particraft in the last couple of weeks from one of our members who sells their arts and crafts products. We'll be uploading a new page dedicated to Particraft demonstators in the next few days and hope to have a fair few of their nationwide team join us.
If you represent a direct sales company that we haven't built a page for, or you know of one, please contact us. You'll find them all listed under Find Stallholders by Direct Sales Company. The more of these companies we know of, no matter how big or small, the better the service Stallfinder will be able to offer to event organisers and that means a more successful site for all our members.
We welcome all ideas and suggestions which will help us to update and improve Stallfinder and make it as useful to you as possible. We've already had some good ideas and great feedback - please keep it coming!
If you have any relevant news or articles of interest to the community here at Stallfinder, please contact us via info@stallfinder.com and we may include them on the site.
We will be using this section of the website to promote individual charities, some less well-known than others. If you are involved with a charity who would like to be included in this section please contact Gail at gail@stallfinder.com
We are now getting lots more events onto the site, which is fantastic news for everyone who uses Stallfinder. At the last count we had well over 250 with more being added daily. If you're an event organiser and you have a list of events you'd like to add, please get in touch as we can add multiple events to the diary much more easily than you can from the normal website interface. All we ask is that you add the first event yourself so you have an account which we can tie subsequent events to. This means that you can go in and edit any of the events through that account once we've added the rest of them for you. If you find there aren't many events in your county or nearby, please contact us and we'll make a big effort to try to attract more for you. REMEMBER! It's FREE to add as many events as you like. Please spread the word as some people can't believe we're doing this for free. We are, and we're going to keep it that way. We're particularly keen to see more events from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
If you have placed a business listing with us, you will be contacted shortly before the end of your free listing period to invite you to come to the site to pay for your annual subscription if you want to remain listed. We hope that you agree that £10 a year represents excellent value for your listing. You may even have got some bookings or sales already from people who have seen you on Stallfinder. If so, we'd love to hear about it - please drop us a line to info@stallfinder.com and share your experiences, good and bad, with us. Please remember to mention Stallfinder if you're contacting an event organiser or one of our stallholders.
We have almost completed testing out our payment pages for stallholder listings. We will be using WorldPay for processing our credit card transactions. WorldPay are a very large and highly reputable Internet Merchant solutions provider. You can find out more about them at www.worldpay.com. WorldPay are pretty strict about ensuring we comply to their rules regarding Refund Policy, Contact Information and displaying of credit card logos. You'll see all this information clearly displayed when you go to the Add Your Listing page. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.
We have now updated our Find Events by Month section to include events up to 2 years away. Some of our visitors who wanted to post events to Stallfinder organise them well over a year in advance so we wanted to be able to support them. This will also give our stallholders a very early look at some events and the chance to book in where competition for pitches and stalls is very hot.
We now have a Launch Partners page where you can find out more about the companies who we're currently working with - Captain Tortue, Barefoot Books and Miglio. As a result of these companies actively promoting us to their representatives, many of them have now joined Stallfinder so welcome to you all.
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