frooly Blog

Frooly.com to cease trading

2012-01-19T12:00:00.027Z

We attempted to save independent retailers and reverse the decline of our high streets.

After 2 years development, and despite significant growth in the last quarter, it is with regret that we announce the closure of Frooly Ltd.

In a climate of recession, retail gloom and discount deals – it’s very expensive to launch a marketplace selling luxury and unique goods.

However, with 1,300+ businesses on board and sufficient growth funding secured, we were confident of the year ahead - our London office was due to open in Feb 2012 and we were trading in good faith.

Unfortunately, as of January 16th, this funding position unexpectedly changed.

Factors beyond our control have affected investor confidence (chargeback’s, shop non delivery of orders, heavily funded competitors etc) – without the planned for investment round in January, we are no longer able to meet our obligations and have no time to make alternative arrangements.

Despite the tremendous backing and support from our Board, we are unable to find a way through it on this occasion. Many investors have decided that a high cost retail business is too risky to fund in the current environment – the only option available is to close the business.

Professionally we are hugely disappointed, and consider many of our trading partners friends. Launching a business is very difficult; we have risked everything and sweated blood to reach this position – only to fall short of capital at a crucial time.

On a personal note, we are devastated with this announcement and particularly with the inconvenience and distress it may cause our fantastic team, supporters and customers. This was out of our hands and only confirmed last week and we certainly didn’t want to put you in a bad personal position.

We’d like to thank Carl, Matt, Emma and all past/present members of the Frooly team for the hard work, great company and shared vision. Both Gemma and I have learnt and experienced things money can’t buy and will be forever wiser for it.

Frooly.com will be turned off on Monday 6th February 2012.

Sadly, frooly.com will be turned off for good on Monday 6th Feb. We strongly advise all shops/websites to log into your site and copy/save your content as it will not be available after that date.

Other cool places to shop and sell...

There are lots of amazing marketplaces - the list isn't exhaustive (sorry if we missed you out) but these guys are worth a look

Marketplaces

Build yourself e-commerce

Shopify

Powa

Creative, professional web design

Dowson Creative

Moogaloo

93ft

Emedia Creative Design

What next?

Both our sellers and customers will receive a personal mail with more information about the closure. Gemma and I will be putting our reflections and thoughts down in more detailed blog posts over the coming weeks.

We have a lot to deal with and do hope to keep your faith and trust as we piece a way through this with the best intentions.

We are still passionate about supporting independent retailers, and empowering young people – and after a much needed break - hope to work with you again.

Thank you for your support, and please accept our sincerest apologies if you are inconvenienced by this sudden news.

We dared to dream, and worked really hard – but it wasn’t to be.

Kind regards

Michael Ord, Gemma Baldan and the Frooly Board

Ps.
Please accept our apologies but we are unable to answer phone calls.
The best contact method is customerservice@frooly.com

Release Notes - Tariffs & Notifications!

2012-01-11T14:06:00.002Z

Hi all,

Carl here with the first release of the year!and all the details you need on it.

Tariffs

A quick glance at http://www.frooly.com/for-business/ show's we've simplified our pricing offerings, down to just two packages.

All new customers get put on this new pricing automatically
Existing customers retain their original tariff but can switch by clicking upgrade in the top right from their website whilst logged in

Notifications

We've developed a new "Notification" system for email. Basically these are email reminders and triggers, the system will mail you under certain criteria (such as if you've forgot to update an order as dispatched) to remind you! or sometimes to reward you if you've met the criteria of certain behaviour!

Enjoy!

Release Notes - Bug Squashing

2011-12-16T16:18:00.002Z

Hi,

The following bug fixes have now been released

Drag & drop should once again be behaving in the correct manner
An issue where return wouldn't take you to a new line in the message composer is now fixed
A grammatical issue on the product not found page has been corrected
Variants can once again be edited & deleted on the edit/add product form
The size of the Variant buttons has been reduced on the edit/add product form
An issue with overlapping menu's in some scenarios is now resolved
The width of the theme selector is once again correct
Price filters in the marketplace and client shops should once again filter by price

Release Notes - Icons, Icons, Icons!

2011-12-12T16:24:00.002Z

Hey all,

Had a small release today with some nice goodies in it! the details are as follows

Frooly.Core

Moved the categories generation to frooly.core, improving speed

Icons

Released new icons for the buttons we released last week, they should look very pretty now!
Tidied up "Hover to Add"
Moved icons on client sites into css sprites to improve speed

Enjoy!

Top Tip #4 Putting your Shop in Holiday Mode

2011-12-08T15:08:00.001Z

It's that time of the year, you're off on your joliies and definitely don't want disturbing. No problem, pop your shop in Holiday Mode.

Holiday Mode takes all your products offline temporarily while you're away. When you get back all your products go back online, just as they were before. No hassle.

How do I put my shop in Holiday Mode?

1) Log in to your shop
2) Go to the black bar along the top right of the screen, find Add Ons, click on to it.

3) Scroll all the way to the bottom of the Add Ons page
4) Find 'Shop' and click the red button which says 'remove' it is only a temporary removal, so don't worry.

Once you've removed your shop, all your products will be safely hidden.

Taking my Shop out of Holiday Mode

1) Log in to your shop
2) Go to the black bar along the top right of the screen, find Add Ons, click on to it.
3) At the top of the page you will see Shop
4) Simply click 'Add' and all your products will be restored.

Top Tip #3 - Save Time with Frooly - Integrated with Facebook, Google Shopping and more

2011-12-07T20:13:00.004Z

Time is money is Time. Updating your website and facebook page can be a time sink, which is the last thing you need when running your boutique business.

By integrating your frooly shop with your facebook page you get the benefit of getting more by doing less (aka the Holy Grail!)

Add a product to your shop and it goes to:

1) your shop (of course)

2) the frooly.com marketplace

3) Google Shopping and

4) Facebook Fanpage and all your 100’s hundreds of likers

We’re all retailers… that’s 4 for the time of 1! A bargain…

If you integrate your Facebook page, any news and images you add to your frooly shop also go to:

1) your frooly shop

2) frooly.com marketplace – news from the community

3) Facebook fanpage and your likers

4) And its good for Google SEO – which means more traffic!

Don’t forget – frooly measures our shops and those who are most proactive get a higher reputation score and feature higher up in our listings.

How do I integrate with Facebook?

Watch the videos here:

http://frooly.com/creativeworkshops/Tutorials/

Release Notes

2011-12-02T13:07:00.002Z

Hello All,

Just to introduce myself as I've not written on the blog before, I'm Carl and I work as a lead web developer at frooly.

I'm sure you've all noticed that from time to time changes are made to either frooly.com or the sites we host for you; either new features or bug fixes for existing ones! well we've decided that we don't always communicate what's been created/fixed as well as we could so going forward whenever we release new stuff I'll be documenting it here on the blog in the form of a short list of release notes. Some of it may sound a bit like technical jargon but they do explain what's been done

So without further a do here are the ones for the content we released yesterday (01/12/11)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Implemented new underpinning technology of how we access data from the database this has allowed us to handle stuff like punctuation in product search without effecting the performance of the site it will also make data access on the whole A LOT faster as we convert old stuff to use the new technology - what you really need to know is it means product search is better/faster and will eventually lead to much better site speed overall
We now parse out external links in product descriptions
Changed the signup text to "signup for faster checkout & special offers"
Changed the no products found text

Client Sites (Your Sites)

We've changed the big blocky buttons on the client sites to match the smaller/sleeker frooly.com ones
converted/converting all the buttons to use "sprites"; means that we only load the image once no matter how buttons are on the page, this will speed up performance and has been done for all icons on the site
General tidying up of some issues on client designs, such as broken forms and cross browser issues

Custom Site Design Fixes (Premium, bespoke designs)

Blue-Eye-Aviation

finances can now be seen on the finance screen
fixed a bug where you couldn't access submenu's when logged in

Sleepe-tee

shop vat/delivery text is once again aligned
shop search boxes are once again aligned

General Bug Fixes

Fixed alignment in manage products
Fixed an issue when adding to basket when using your own domain for your site and the user was logged out
Fixed an issue where if you went to frooly.com/frooly the site crashed
Fixed an issue where if you pressed continue shopping on frooly.com after adding to basket it took you to the homepage
Fixed score breakdown display in IE
Fixed shareThis in IE
Fixed facebook comments on product pages not always loading
Fixed a hover issue if a lot of items in navigation
Fixed an issue where featured controls showed too many products after edit if you'd changed the number

That's all folks!

Seedcamp Saved us 6 months

2011-12-01T22:55:00.007Z

Seedcamp London is coming around again (Jan 2012) - so it's a good time to reflect on what we learnt last year... here's our reflection:

Time is the most valuable commodity when running a start up. Wasting time on the wrong product feature, marketing strategy, target sector, can be the difference between momentum and luck or a slow death.

Without external mentoring or validation it can be lonely and even dangerous. Group think? Feature Creep? Customer Closeness? What problem are we solving again…? Maybe your team knows but can you communicate it in one tweet to the rest of the world? That was the value of Seedcamp to frooly.

Like a baptism of fire, Seedcamp was 6-12 months of learning in a day and half. Where else can your pitch, be mentored and given direct feedback from tech industry A listers? – People who really know how to get things done.

Frooly is trying to save choice on the high street – a social commerce marketplace, loyalty facebook app and bespoke online shops to you and me.

Pitching at Seedcamp helped refocus our feature set/development list, simplify the language we used to help connect better with our audience (independent retailers/mostly female shoppers, who don’t use tech language) and most importantly decide what not to do.

Since Seedcamp, our marketplace has grown rapidly, our social loyalty app is coming soon and we’re excited by the future.

And after much discussion (the arguments are still raging...), here is frooly in a tweet: “Earn money by shopping with Britain’s best luxury and unique sellers”*

What’s your business in a tweet?

Thanks

*update: this tweet description is for when our new Facebook/Mobile Social Loyalty App is live. It will reward users for supporting their favourite sellers with credit to spend with frooly.

Frooly selected to attend Bootcamp at TechCity Entrepreneur Festival in London

2011-11-10T10:40:00.002Z

We’re delighted to be selected to attend Entrepreneurs Festival at Tech City next week (November 14-19)

Launched by Prime Minister David Cameron, the event brings together “more than 300 of the best and brightest entrepreneurs from across Europe to meet, train and pitch to the top mentors, entrepreneurs and investors from the UK, USA and Europe”.

We benefitted enormously from the advice and support at the Mini Seedcamp in January 2011. This event is like Seedcamp, only longer and it promises to be just as intense. We were delighted to be chosen to attend the Bootcamps – hundreds of tech start ups from all over Europe applied, so it’s a real feather in our cap!

The Entrepreneur Festival is organised as part of London’s Global Entrepreneurship Week – it’s designed to give “young tech and digital companies a competitive advantage by accelerating their start-up phase through an intense week of business boot camp training sessions with the industry’s most successful leaders”.

Michael Ord, Frooly MD said:

“It’s an exciting time at frooly hq, we have some fantastic sellers , our marketplace and ‘Reputation’ Directory are maturing, half the team are moving to London and now out of the blue we’re going to the Tech City Entrepreneur Festival Bootcamps.

It can be lonely launching a tech start up – if we learn half as much as Seedcamp than this next few weeks will be priceless!”

More Information

Tech City Entrepreneurship Festival

Frooly Marketplace

Frooly Reputation Score

We’re on the lookout for The UK’s Best Luxury & Unique Seller 2011.

2011-10-21T16:06:00.007+01:00

So, word on the street is that we've got an amazing competition for the title of Britain’s Best Luxury & Unique Seller 2011!

Win £2000 worth of prizes!

As well are this acclaimed title, you’re in with a chance to win a bespoke website worth £2000, designed by Matthew our amazing new designer! Take a look at recent sites he’s created for other frooly sellers www.flockldn.com www.blueeyeaviation.co.uk

How do I get my hands on the prize?

It’s easy; get everyone you know to vote for you. (Grandma, the dog, passers by... you get the picture).

How to vote?

There are two ways to vote:

1) Click ‘Become a fan’ on your frooly homepage, like this;

2) Or ‘like’ the frooly facebook fan page, then comment on our wall and include a link to the frooly shop you are voting for.

Voters can win £500 Shopping Spree!

In order to make sure your busy voters are rewarded, we will pick a winner at random - the prize for the lucky winner is a £500 shopping spree!

We will of course be pushing this out to all frooly’s customers, fans and followers, not to mention some great national partners and lots of press! So make sure your shops are looking hot to be in with the chance to win.

What next?

The competition won’t kick off until Monday 24^th October and we won’t start counting your new fans until then.

Choosing a winner?

The competition will start on Monday 24^th October and will run until Friday 2nd December. Over the duration of the competition we will measure all our shops ‘fan count’ and our facebook comments. The shop with the fan count that has increased the most or that has had the most facebook mentions wins!

We will be running mini features on the shops that take part, so pipe up on our facebook and twitter pages about your competition preparations! We want to share lots of interesting facts about your business, so please keep us posted.

Find us on Facebook

That's all for now, go spread the word, and good luck!

Gemma

Getting Started with Frooly - Blog Series #2 Beautiful Banner Design

2011-10-12T17:44:00.005+01:00

#2 Beautiful Banner Design

First impressions count, and I know it's a cliché but good design is crucial to brand, confidence and trust. Create a 900 x 225 pixel banner for your shop (speak to a designer or copy it from your main website if you have one already)

Upload a banner or logo from your computer

Larger banners can be resized and banners can be changed at any time.

Check out some cool frooly sites for examples

Luxury Silk Scarves by Yaelle

Vintage Craft Workshops and Jewellery by The Button Tin

Cards and illustrations by Reginald Swinney

Jewellery and Gifts from Naturally Heartfelt

Next in the blog series:

Customised Website Design and Theme

Integrate with Facebook

Adding 'About', 'Blog', 'Contact' and 'Delivery/Returns' pages

How to add products – Facebook, Google Shopping, Frooly.com and more

Invite Fans and Customers

Share a competition on Social Media

Watch your frooly 'reputation score' grow

Be the best independent retailer in the UK?!

If you have any topic suggestions, please feel to get in touch

11 xTips for Selling More Online with Frooly - Getting Started with your frooly shop

2011-10-12T16:31:00.011+01:00

This is the first of a blog series, starting at the basics and sharing practical tips about how to make the most of your frooly online shop/website.

We're fortunate to be at the top of a pyramid of 1,200 websites and shops. Sellers of luxury jewellery, fashion, unique art and handmade delights all use frooly to reach a wider audience and sell their wares. We'll share some tips and examples...

Right, you've joined frooly and created your shop, now what do you do?

#1 Signing in to your shop

There are two ways to sign in to your frooly shop or website.

Method 1: On frooly.com simply Sign in (top left) using facebook or by using your email address.

Once logged in, you should be re-directed to your shop/website. Tip: If this doesnt happen, simple go to My Account > Connect Sites and click on your shop name.

Method 2: Type your shop domain name / frooly URL into your browser. Once you find it log in as above

Every frooly shop is optimised to be found by Google in it's own right. So make sure you add content and make it look nice for your potential customers.

The tips on the next blog posts show you how.

New Release: Paypal, AJAX and Premium Website Templates

2011-09-21T12:24:00.007+01:00

Today sees the first of a few mini publishes to frooly.com and our 1000+ online shops.

Developed by @carl_woodhouse and the frooly dev team, these features really fill out the shopper experience and will make our platform more useful for all.

AJAX – which allows features like price sliders and category filters, plus better on page load times - its been on the radar for what seems like an eternity, and should really improve the shopping experience.

Paypal - Many shoppers and shopkeepers on frooly have asked for Paypal as a payment method.

Frooly is FSA Registered and can already accept all major Credit / Debit cards, we offer a customer refund guarantee and one click pay for repeat shoppers.

We're pleased to also utilise Paypal, who can't be woo'd by the world's leading online payment provider?

25 x New Premium Website Templates - simply log in to your shop/website, click theme and scroll through the selection to see live previews of our new templates. There's something for everyone, and with most themes you can customise background, font, navigation and more - plenty to keep you busy!

What's next?

Over the next few weeks we'll be releasing some pretty exciting stuff!

Directory of Top Sellers - a dynamic league table of the best shops / websites - ranked by frooly score and searchable by category and location

Set up wizard - to help site owners make the most of their frooly shop

Shop, Love, Share - Social loyalty programme to encourage word of mouth recommendations.

As ever, we'd love to hear your feedback.

Thanks

Michael

Measure a seller's reputation with 'Frooly Score'

2011-08-23T14:16:00.005+01:00

Monday 22nd August saw the release of frooly's long awaited tool to showcase seller reputation; Frooly Score.

Word of mouth makes the local commerce world go round.

It takes years of consistent service and happy customers to build a local reputation, but only seconds to destroy it.

We've all heard the stories of a favourite local restaurant or boutique that has lost its way. I suppose it's proximity - everyone loves a good gossip!

Why is reputation important?

A good reputation, means a seller is well respected, they have good products / service and deliver on time.

Recent research shows that a personal recommendation is worth 20 TV Adverts when it comes to purchase intention. People are like sheep, we all like to go to that 'cool' bar, but its hard to measure 'cool' or 'reputation' when it comes to e-commerce.

Services like Klout are great for measuring personal reputation. The frooly score applies a similar logic to help you make informed decisions about who to support and where to shop.

It's real world reputation, but applied to the web, which is the promise of social commerce.

How is the Frooly Score worked out?

The Frooly Score is our attempt to measure the shopper 'signals' to give a reputation score.

We measure Facebook Likes, Frooly Fans, Shop Sales, Traffic, Customer Enquiries and more to build a picture of a seller. These raw figures are given a weighting, for example a shop sale has more value than a Facebook Like, but they all contribute to the total score.

How does Frooly use the Frooly Score?

At the moment, we display the Frooly Score in the seller info on product listings. We also rank the top 12 Frooly Shops based on reputation - these are displayed on the frooly.com landing page:

We include a Frooly Score weighting in our search results algorithm and we're working on a dynamic league table for shops, locations and categories.

So that you can find the best Vintage Shop in London based on frooly score.

For now, we're open to your feedback about the weighting we give to shopper 'signals'. and how you think we should use the score to help shoppers.

Thanks

Michael

Ps.

If you have a shop on frooly, one way to gain more prominence is link your Facebook Fan Page, this way we can count your 'likers' into your score.

Here's a video of how to link your frooly shop and facebook page.

5 Tips for SEO Friendly Copy and Product Information

2011-08-05T16:57:00.009+01:00

We look after 1000+ shops/websites and its the question we get asked the most - "how can I get my products found?"

I was going to write a blog giving guidance on SEO friendly copy, particularly how to optimise product information so that it gets more traffic and sales.

Instead of typing straight into blogger, I did what we all do and searched for "5 tips for SEO friendly product descriptions" - it turns out there's loads of stuff out there, so there's no point me re-inventing the wheel!

I'll give you a quick overview and share some of the best articles/links on SEO that I found.

Ps. Search Engine Optimised (SEO) content is only part of the battle. Don't forget great product photography too.

Quick Tips

Write using the language of your shoppers - think 'what would I search for?

It's easy to use internal jargon when listing products or talking about your business - we all do it. It's best to avoid 'pet' names or acronyms and give full brand name, spelt out clearly in a phrase that potential customers will search for.

Shoppers searching for this picture are likely to use the term 'VW Camper Van Photo' - the artist name for this product is ADF Buses Colour''- this should be used in the product description as supporting information but not in the product title.

Unsure what terms are popular? Google has a great free keyword tool

2. Don't use manufacturers descriptions 'word for word'

I'm not asking you to become JK Rowling, but unique content works best. There are probably 50 other sites using the manufacturers descriptions, so to gain an edge why not re-write them in your own style.

Stuck for time? Why not ask a media / journalist graduate (they're all looking for experience). Contact your local University or College

Want to do it yourself? Here's a good article on SEO Copy (there's more at the bottom)

3. Mention your product name, brand and category more than once (key word density)

Different people argue different %ages (between 2 & 5% of the text) but I'd say, don't spam the user, but don't be shy of using the brand name, product name and category in the title and description.

For example:

Artist name is known for his/her fantastic VW Camper Van paintings. At insert shop name we specialising in bespoke framing with a prompt delivery.

VW Camper Van paintings are available in both white or black frames.

etc. (you get the idea)

4. Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS)

Think from a shoppers point of view. Answer all the 5 questions; What? Who? Why? How? When? in a concise way and tell the story to make the product a) compelling and b) trustworthy.

Generic, incomplete content makes it easy for a shopper to go elsewhere.

5. Did I mention unique content?

Research has shown that 60% of shoppers require clear product information and images to make a purchase.

What with phishing, 'Anonymous' hacking and all that, the internet is a scary place to give your data - dont give shoppers any excuses to choose someone else.

Useful Links

E-consultancy - pathway to conversion report

E-consultancy SEO Best practice guide

SEO Tips

How to write SEO friendly product copy

10 tips for SEO friendly product descriptions

Advanced - Search Engine Land - 10 tips for SEO sound product listings

Hope this is helpful (its only the tip of the iceberg)

cheers

Michael

All frooly shops are optimised for SEO. Products are sent to Google Shopping and there's loads of under the hood stuff which takes the pain out of getting found on search. The only thing left to do is add content.

frooly curates Tramlines 2011 Official Online Store

2011-07-06T15:12:00.005+01:00

Official Tramlines 2011 Tees by Hantu Collective and Martin Bedford

Tramlines brings out the best of Sheffield. We're delighted to be working with Tramlines and some really talented artists to create quality limited edition tees, hoodies, prints and more.

Go online to check out exclusive designs by Geo Law of the Hantu Collective, the legendary Martin Bedford and more.

With this design, Geo Law wanted to "reflect the fun and explosive vibe that engulfs the city for one summer weekend a year. We think he's nailed it!"

Shop Online at frooly.com/tramlines at Tramlines Festival Merchandise Stalls.

ps.

Frooly, with our Devonshire Market hat on, is helping to organise the Arts/Food Markets around Tramlines. It's a great opportunity to reach the 100k+ who will descend on Sheffield. Get in touch if you want a stall.

Frooly.com update: Shoppers Delight

2011-07-04T14:43:00.008+01:00

Things never stand still at frooly hq; we're listening to your feedback and have committed the next 6-12 weeks to your suggestions. Code-named 'sugarhill' the next few releases are all about shoppers delight.

Here's but a snippet of what to expect; sexier marketplace, search by price/size/colour, accept Paypal, international deliveries, voucher codes, beefed up 'frooly 'reputation' score and much more.

Today's release brings you:

15 x Premium Themes for the frooly shops - make your shop even more unique
Simpler marketplace presentation with bigger product images
Curation of frooly marketplace by @gemmabaldan
Bug Fixes - inc mailbox improvements, add product issues

Over the next few weeks we'll be releasing lots more features and improvements, so keep the suggestions coming:

Email: info@frooly.com

Talk to us on the Facebook Frooly Fan Page

Twitter: @finditonfrooly

Or in commments below.

Thanks

Michael

Founder

@michael_ord

Top 10 Tips for Marketing on Facebook

2011-06-01T09:11:00.000+01:00

Almost 700 million people worldwide have a facebook account today. It's no wonder that businesses have turned to the social networking site en masse as a means to market themselves.

However, Facebook users aren't a captive audience in the traditional sense. Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg famously stated that "adverts aren't cool", and his users agreed. They aren't there to be sold to.

In fact, as soon as you start to spam fans and followers with irritating adverts about your products, it's as easy as clicking 'unlike' to make you disappear.

So if Facebook marketing isn't about raising awareness of your brand and products, what is it about?

Answer: Engagement.

Here's our top 10 tips for engaging your facebook audience, and stimulating more activity on your fan page.

#1 Be open and transparent.
Allow others to make comments and interact with the brand, and show your consumers that you care what they have to say.

#2 Be human.
Show your fans the people behind the business, and make it clear that consumers are interacting with those people.

#3 Give more insight.
Allow fans access to more behind-the-scenes style information than they can find on your site. They want new perspectives and a reason to be your fan.

#4 Don’t sell to your fans.
I can't iterate this enough. Nobody wants their feed to be full of your latest range or product announcements....they will feel used. Are you using your fans?

#5 Post outside of normal business hours.
If you've got news and updates, try as far as possible to post them before 9am or after 5pm for maximum engagement. Remember, your fans have to study and work all day too!

#6 Create ambassadors.
If you use Facebook correctly, you can make customers feel part of the community. Giving people a sense that they have a say will help you to create brand ambassadors, who will do your marketing for you.

#7 Join the Conversation.
Build a content strategy around topical issues and events. Is father's day just around the corner? Has something significant happened? Then share something topical. Tap into what your fans are already talking about.

#8 Make use of Facebook Questions.
The new Facebook questions feature can be used to gauge consumer opinions on things, and to even guide product development. We recently asked people what they like for breakfast. Why? We just wanted to talk.

#9 Keep a close tab on comments and posts.
Check your wall regularly. Responding to activity promptly helps to stimulate further activity. It’s not a once a day job.

#10 Hold your hands up when it comes to complaints or disputes.
It requires particular skill to neutralise negativity in a public sphere, but simply deleting negative comments is not the answer. Hold your hands up and admit when you're wrong and then respond in a way that comforts the consumer and shows others that you’re committed to customer satisfaction.

Stick to these points and you'll be well placed to grab as many of those 700 million users as is possible.

(If you've got any other pointers that you think we've missed, feel free to let us know in the comments.)

Richard Heathcote
Matador of Marketing
frooly

Frooly Launch in the Press

2011-05-25T11:17:00.005+01:00

We've been working extra hard at frooly HQ recently, putting the finishing touches to our beautiful new site, and it seems like it's starting to pay off as we're getting rather a lot of exciting press interest.

Below are just a few of the places we've been featured and reviewed this week:

"Frooly sets up shop as a local Etsy for indie stores in the UK" Read More

"Connecting shoppers locally: the launch of frooly" Read More

The Marketing Map
"frooly frees local traders to join the big boys online" Read More

"‘Buy local’ website goes nationwide" Read More

"Frooly sets up shop as a local etsy for indie stores in the UK" Read More

1000 Businesses!

2011-05-05T10:44:00.008+01:00

We are proud to announce that we have reached a significant milestone: We now have 1000 small businesses promoting their businesses and selling their products on frooly.com!

Amy Wood became frooly's 1000th shop owner.

Amy is a an exciting new jewellery designer-maker based in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. She specialises in bespoke tactile pieces, worked in Silver with the occasional touch of Gold, and has had her work featured in Vogue in December 2010.

Congratulations to Amy. We're very pleased to have her on board!

You can visit her newly-created frooly shop now!

Product Photography (Part 3)

2011-05-05T10:30:00.001+01:00

Ok, so we now have our DIY light tent and it's time to start taking the all-important photographs.

I mentioned at the beginning of this tutorial that you don't need a fancy DSLR camera to achieve great results with this light tent, and I mean that. Just to prove that to you, I've taken the pictures in this blog post with a mixture of cameras, one of those was my digital SLR, but I've also shot with an iphone camera and a Sony Cyber-shot DSC w350 point and shoot compact camera.

When we begin taking product photographs, we need to think about three things in particular: the light, the composition and our camera settings. I'll talk about light and composition in this post, and leave camera settings for a future post, because it can get a little technical.

Light

In the photographs on this blog post, I have used only the available light, because I was in a very well-lit room. However, if you're not as lucky as that, position a lamp or any constant light source above your light tent. The fabric/crete paper will diffuse the light, casting a soft glow over your product.

You can adjust the direction that the light is coming from according to your taste, and feel free to add other light sources. You might want one to shine from the top of the box, and another to be coming in from the left. Experiment a little and see what works best with your product.

Please note though, that if you are using more than one light source, you will need to make sure that they use the same kind of bulb (remember I said that daylight bulbs were ideal?). Different bulbs cast light at different colour temperatures, as illustrated by the mugs above. Some cast a rather blue light, others a reddish light. Our eyes are very good at adjusting for different light temperatures, but your camera is not, and it will get confused, meaning you will have some strange colour casts featuring in your images.

Composition

Composition is fairly straightforward. You want to make sure that you arrange your product in the light tent in a way that attracts the viewers eye. Try not to just arrange the product sideways on, but place it at a slight angle to give the image more depth. This will naturally create more intrigue and draw attention.

Make sure when you are composing your shot that your product more or less fills the frame. You want it to be big enough for your consumers to see. Having said that, you also want to make sure that your whole product is in the shot. Don't be tempted to crop in so close that you end up cutting off part of the product.

Also, if the product has something that isn't so significant, like the thread attached to the USB drive in the photo above, then it's acceptable to let this drift out of the shot.

At this point you can just go ahead and press the shutter button and see what happens. If you're using a point and shoot camera then it will take light readings for you and decide on the best settings for a well exposed photograph.

If you're happy with the results then great. If not, I would imagine your complaint will be that the background isn't white enough. This is because in order to make a perfect white background, we need to overexpose the photo. If that's what you're after then you'll need to make some small adjustments to your camera settings, which I will explain in the next blog entry.

Still to come: part 4 - camera settings, part 5 - cropping and editing.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minion
tweeeeet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Everybody's Talking About Devonshire Market

2011-05-03T10:00:00.006+01:00

"Just at Devonshire Market, really good, get down here!" @Whatsonupnorth

At least twelve thousand people followed that advice and turned out on Friday for the inaugural Devonshire Market in Sheffield, in good spirits following the royal wedding and ready to party.

As you can imagine, throughout the event (which was a roaring success) and after, Twitter was buzzing with talk of the event, and the fun people had had.

I could sit here and tell you all about it, but I've decided it'd be both easier and more effective to just compile a collection of our favourite tweets. So, here they are.

Thanks for all your kind comments!

@RadShef
"Hurry up and do the balcony bit already. I've got a thesis to write and I also want to pop out to the market on Devonshire Green #rw11"

@sparkione
"I am happy, its me birthday! Off into town in a min to a market on devonshire green, then a curry later :))"

@YeeKwanIceCream
"Wot a fantastic day @devonshiremkt today, amazing vibe n loving meeting all my customers today. More yummy flavours to excite u next month"

@jamesrcross
"Great atmosphere in Sheffield down at the Devonshire Green street party. Some very un-regal reggae blasting out from the Market - bonus!"

@thebuttontin
"Thank you @finditonfrooly for a lovely day at @DevonshireMkt yesterday! Brill tunes too!"

@wells_marketing
"Good to see everyone at @DevonshireMkt yesterday. Great people, great atmosphere. I get the feeling it'll become a #Sheffield institution..."

@extremeporridge
"@MooLaLaS1 @devonshiremkt @ourcowmolly loved the Henderson's sausages :-) loved the ice-cream :-) loved the Market:-)"

@patisserielola
"Had a great day at Sheffield's Devonshire st market yesterday. Fantastic atmosphere and sold out of all my produce..."

@dansumption
"Street party on Devonshire Green & Division Street was lovely. Such a perfect day."

Says it all really. We can't wait for the next one!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minstrel
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Product Photography (Part 2)

2011-04-19T13:52:00.014+01:00

Now that we've all got a 4 day weekend, we've got time to make our light tent!

Step #1: Use the marker and ruler to measure and draw a window on each side of the box (except the back and bottom). I measured 2 inches from the edge all the way around, except for the top, where I allowed the window to reach all the way to the back edge. (see image below)

Step #2: With the windows drawn, I then used my knife to carefully cut them out. Take care not to slip with the knife as you draw it down the length of the ruler, because you'll need all of your fingers to complete the task.

Step #3: Once you've cut out all the windows, use your tape and common sense to assemble the box. If it doesn't look like it does in the images below, then something must have gone wrong!?

Step #4: At this stage, I used two scrap pieces of cardboard to prop up the bristol board, which forms the background, as in the images. You want the backdrop to droop, as in the images, to create that infinite feel.

Step #5: Finally, I cut crete paper, pulled it tight over the side and top windows and stuck in place using tape. If you're using fabric you might want to staple it down.

(I removed the background just while I was fixing the crete paper to the box)

And there you have it: a fully assembled DIY light tent, ready for our next tutorial on taking professional-looking product photographs.

Let us know how you get on. You can post pictures of your light tent on our facebook wall.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Marsupial
If you can't beat me, tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Product Photography (Part 1)

2011-04-19T10:26:00.012+01:00

(You can click on any photo to enlarge)

New frooly is due to go live in May, and we want to encourage you all to get your sites looking the best that they can, ready for when we send a flurry of new customers through your virtual doors.

To that end, I've been busy finding ways to help you all with your product photography, and I've come up with a cheap and (relatively) simple way to get you taking photos like the one I took above...a DIY light tent.

You could buy a light tent, but it'll cost you anywhere from £30-60, and not many small businesses can afford the luxury.

Besides, all a light tent does is diffuse the available light, so that your photos don't have harsh shadows and your products look their best.

You Will Need

- We assume you already have a basic compact digital camera
- 1 Large Box (your product will need to fit comfortably inside)
- Crete Paper or thin white fabric
- 2 Sheets of Bristol Board or Flexible (but fairly thick) white card
- Tape (I used gaffer tape because I'm not concerned with aesthetics)
- Scissors
- Sturdy Ruler
- Marker Pen
- Craft Knife, Scalpel or Stanley Knife (for cutting through card)
- A constant light source, ideally with daylight-balanced bulbs (5600k)

NB: Using household bulbs is acceptable, because modern compact cameras are good at adjusting to different light temperatures, but daylight bulbs will ensure that your images don't have blue or yellow tints.
You might also want to pick up the bristol board in a couple of alternative colours, as this will form your background.
No need for a fancy DSLR camera. Modern cameras are brilliant these days and do all the hard work for you!

That's all for this post.

Get yourself to a stationery shop and pick up those few bits, and we'll then set about actually making the thing.

(Still to come in this series...assembling the light box, taking professional-looking photos.)

Many thanks to Jeffrey Bail and Digital Photography School for the inspiration.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Mechanic
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

#meetfrooly

2011-04-15T09:16:00.004+01:00

frooly networking kicks off today on tweetchat. Go to www.tweetchat.com at 1pm and type in #meetfrooly...then start contributing.

We'll be talking about the best ways to market your business and sharing our experiences.

Come and join the conversation!!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Maverick
tweeeeeet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Craig (Not Fievel) Goes West

2011-04-14T10:00:00.002+01:00

This week is a sad/joyous week in the office, because it is the last week that our resident front-end developer and product-manager Craig will grace the office with his presence, as he’s off to cycle across America.

Craig has challenged himself to cycle the width of the USA in just under 3 months, and the office have taken out a sweepstake on the date he will actually arrive. He has been “training” for his challenge for some time now, occasionally cycling to work from his home in Stockport, and eating pizza, so naturally there are those who are skeptical that he will arrive at all!

Monsieur Hamnett touches down in New York on April 28th and will leave himself a couple of days to adjust before he starts his marathon journey, aiming to catch a flight from San Francisco on July 27th , giving him 89 days to complete the trip.

You can follow his exploits on his blog at www.craighamnett.com, and even enter our sweepstake if you so wish.

In memory of Craig’s continued contribution to frooly we have put together a small montage of stills for your perusal.

....even Rocky had a montage.

Goodbye and good luck Craig!

The Froolies
frooly.com
@finditonfrooly

TweetChat Networking - More Info

2011-04-13T10:10:00.004+01:00

Some of you are a little confused by the idea of tweetchat networking...but fear not, because we're breaking it down for you right here.

An example conversation on the #LondonOlympics

Tweetchat functions like a kind of chat room. Who you chat to depends on which #hashtag you choose to follow.

Go to tweetchat.com and sign in with your twitter account.

Step #1:

At the top of the page, you can choose to follow all tweets with a certain #hashtag. You'll need to enter the hash tag that we give you so that you can follow the frooly networking conversation.

Step #2:

Make a comment and click update. Your comment will be tweeted on twitter and added to the conversation. The relevant #hashtag will be automatically added to your tweet...

Step #3:

Set the refresh speed. By default the feed will refresh every 10 seconds revealing comments from other frooly networkers. You can change the refresh speed to suit you, up to once every minute.

Step #4:

Follow the conversation and engage. Now tweetchat will do the hard work to bring you all tweets in the conversation, and filter out all the irrelevant tweets that normally clog the feed.

N.B. Any comment you make is a tweet, and so will also be tweeted on twitter as normal.

If you're still unsure, leave us a comment and we'll get back to you.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minion
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Peer Power

2011-04-12T08:32:00.004+01:00

We’re giving you the tools to build brand advocates.

Most of us don’t have the advertising budget available to go and blow 20K on a polished television advert, but that doesn’t matter anymore, because recommendation is far more powerful.

Photograph by Murdo McDermid

The world of brand marketing has been changed for good by the birth of web 2.0, which relies on user-generated content and encourages peer interaction. You all know the sites I’m referring to: the facebooks and twitters of this world, where anybody can broadcast their views to the World. These are the future of brand marketing.

Why? Well because their users have developed a healthy skepticism for conventional marketing. They wouldn’t dream of buying anything before consulting some form of consumer product review, and are also quick to blog and post about their purchases and user experience: both good and bad.

Did you know that you're seven times more likely to recommend somebody you follow on twitter? That's what they say.

Studies have found that peer recommendation is more effective at generating enquiries than twenty television adverts, so all we have to do is turn our customers into loyal brand advocates and get them to tell their friends....sounds easy, doesn’t it!?

And it is...or rather, it will be...because here at frooly we’re working on an exciting new reward scheme which will empower our shop owners to incentivise and reward exactly that kind of recommendation and engagement behaviour.

Stay tuned for more updates as we develop this game-changing tool.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minstrel
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

frooly Does Virtual Networking

2011-04-11T15:25:00.007+01:00

In the past we’ve run various workshops and events to encourage exchange and collaboration between independent businesses, and they’ve always been popular.

Now frooly is teaming up with TweetChat to hold virtual networking and troubleshooting sessions in the hope that we can connect you guys with other people who might have the answers you need.

What is TweetChat?

Tweetchat is a website that allows you to follow specific twitter conversations without other irrelevant tweets getting in the way.

How Are We Harnessing It?

We’ll be holding fortnightly tweetchat events where our shop owners can chat to each other, chat to us, get quick fixes to their frooly troubles, or advice on anything else that affects small businesses.

How Does It Work?

You’ll need a twitter account, and you’ll need to login to tweetchat.com at the allotted time. We’ll make sure you know what the topic hash tag is (eg #froolynetworking) and you’ll be able to chat away.

Exciting stuff, eh....interested?

If you are, send us a tweet @finditonfrooly with the hash tag #interested so we can send you more information when the time comes!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Muppet
tweet me here, tweet me there @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

3 Steps for More Virtual Customers

2011-04-05T11:01:00.008+01:00

E-commerce can reap big rewards, but every business that wants to sell online has to overcome one major hurdle: driving enough traffic to the site to generate sufficient enquiries and sales.

Here at frooly, we use as many tools as possible to help bring customers to your site, but that doesn’t mean you can just sit back and do nothing (sorry!).

Here’s 3 things you could be doing to increase your virtual footfall on frooly:

#1 Fresh Content

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is big business these days. All it means is making sure that your site is found as high up in Google search rankings as possible and there’s one sure fire way of doing it....fresh content.

Think about adding your fresh content little and often. This could be short news stories, updates, products or photos. There’s no need to spend hours either. 5 minutes at the start of the day to add something fresh will keep your site “ticking over” and is far more effective than adding it all in one burst!

#2 Shout About It

Go to the top of a very tall building wherever you live and start yelling the name of your business......no I’m just joking.

Frooly automates your facebook updates, and will reward you for adding more products by telling all your ‘fans’ about it, but surprisingly few businesses make full use of the other free tools out there.

Start ‘tweeting’ your news and thoughts, and share updates on one of the various blogging platforms. These tools have potentially unlimited scope for attracting customers, and if you’re not using them, you should be.

#3 Share Something Unique

Don’t just tell people what you’re selling. Customers want to be engaged these days, so share something different.

It’s great to tell them what you’ve got in your shop, but they won’t tune in if they’re only being sold to, so you need to offer them insights, offers and advice as well.

Start engaging your customers, and you’ll soon find that you’re creating loyal ambassadors who will be willing to climb that tall building and shout your business name for you!

Hope that helps

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minister
tweet me up bitches @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Frooly Sponsors Sheffield’s Best Independent Business Award

2011-03-31T12:17:00.004+01:00

Sheffielders took to the stage at the annual Exposed Awards in February. It was a night of 80’s glamour and rock and roll, where the buzzing crowd were treated to live music, fire eaters and 80’s inspired finger food.

We were really proud to be sponsoring the best independent business category. Promoting and supporting independent business is something that is really close to our hearts.

So, towards the end of the evening when the wine had flown a little too freely, and the 80’s afro wigs had started to slip, we were up on centre stage ready to announce the winner.

It was a tough category with stiff competition, but the people’s favourite shone firmly.

The winner was Fancie, who have been delighting all from far and wide with their delectable cupcakes. A big congratulations!

See the review in Exposed Page 51.

lots of love,

The Froolies
frooly.com
@finditonfrooly

Kirstie: In Search of Britain's Best Crafters

2011-03-30T11:04:00.003+01:00

We are really excited to be sharing the news that Kirstie Allsopp of Location, Location, Location and Kirstie’s Handmade Home, is calling all crafters to take part in her new crafting series!

The channel 4 series produced by Raise the Roof Productions (owned and run by Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp) will go hand in hand with an accompanying book full of crafting treasures from the series.

Here’s Kirstie and her team's call to frooly, in the search for Britain’s best crafters:

CALLING ALL CRAFTERS!

On Kirstie Allsopp’s brand new craft programme she will be meeting and working with some of Britain’s best crafters but this time she wants you to join her. Do you have a passion for crafts? Are you an amateur artisan desperate to grow your talent? Would you like to join Kirstie on her journey to learn new and amazing skills from master craftspeople? If so, please contact craft@raisetheroofproductions.com for more details on how to apply.

Good luck everyone, and don’t forget to let us know if you’ve applied!

The Frooly Team
frooly.com
@finditonfrooly

Michael on BBC Radio

2011-03-29T14:29:00.005+01:00

If you live in Leeds, or just happened to be in the city at around 10:30 yesterday morning, you may have heard the dulcet tones of frooly founder Michael Ord dancing on the airwaves of BBC Radio Leeds.

Michael joined Michelle Walton, owner and proprietor of Bird’s Yard in Kirkgate, Leeds, for an informal chat about supporting independent businesses on the Mid-Morning Show with Adam Pope, and could be heard extolling the view that “if we don’t support the independents, there’ll only be big brands left on every high street”.

The interview can be found on the BBC iPlayer (available until 4th April). Skip along to 1 hour and 36 minutes in, and hear about the inspiration behind both frooly and Bird’s Yard.

Let us know what you think!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Minister
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Frooly launches Devonshire Market, Sheffield

2011-03-28T17:11:00.006+01:00

Aside from the impending Royal Wedding, the 29th April is a landmark occasion for another reason. Our city sees the launch of the first ever market to take place on Division Street and Devonshire Green, showcasing the very best in vintage, fashion, handmade, food, jewellery, crafts and farmers produce. We are literally counting down the days!

“We are really excited to be launching the first Devonshire Market. It’s about time that our creative city had a market to showcase our wonderful makers and sellers. As a small business, it can be really challenging to get your product to the masses cost effectively, and this is the perfect opportunity. Plus it’s a great drive to get people from Sheffield and surrounding areas back into our city centre” explains Gemma Baldan, frooly's coordinator for the event.

In partnership with Exposed Magazine and the people behind Tramlines / Harley live, the launch event will be the first of many monthly markets. There will be live music, entertainment, cocktails and a fabulous street party, and of course the Royal Wedding live!

Come and join us to celebrate our wonderful city.

Fancy a stall? Contact us: gemma.baldan@frooly.com for more info.

Devonshire Market - Division Street, Sheffield – Friday April 29th

How Does He Do That?

2011-03-28T09:00:00.000+01:00

Last week we filmed a short introduction to some of our office team, which was received pretty well by all those who watched it. The outtakes were received even more warmly by the looks of things, and we all had a sensible amount of controlled fun.

After all the merriment and excitement though, we naturally all settled back down and diligently got on with our work. Being the free-spirited, happy-go-lucky guy that I am (whatever you say Richard - ed), I decided not to put the recording equipment away, and left it set up nicely in the corner of the room.

I’ve been called lazy by some, but the more creatively astute recognise that it was an entirely calculated move, designed to capture the kind of unexpected eventuality that was about to unfold.

Because, that very afternoon, Ben Z of BenZ Magic fame (you might know him as Hunter’s Bar’s Magic Waiter) paid us a little visit. He was just passing through, but we challenged him to leave us in awe with one of his magic tricks...and he duly obliged.

You can view the full trick below:

(or click to view our YouTube channel)

Myself and a number of other froolyites in the office have watched this back several times, and we still can’t work out how he did it.

We’re thinking of purchasing some of BenZ’s bespoke magic lessons so that we can put our puzzlement to bed!

If you think you know, please don't spoil the fun for others, but we'd really appreciate your answers on a postcard.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Mountaineer
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Clever Site Design - Image is Everything

2011-03-24T15:14:00.007Z

The quality of the images you choose to use on your site makes the difference between your site popping or flopping. It’s like a children’s book. The reader will flick through and look at the pictures first, and only when they’re content that everything looks good will they decide to read on, so it’s important to get it right.

You don’t have to be a pro photographer to get great images either. In a few week’s time I’m going to guide you through how to achieve great results with your own product photography, but what about the other images you use on your site?

Well, you have a number of options.

You could go to a stock photo site like Shutterstock or Fotolia, where you’ll be able to search for good quality images of all kinds of things. The good thing about these kind of sites is that they have banks full of thousands and thousands of images, taken by photographers all over the world, and you can usually find something very suitable. These sites tend to sell credits, which allow you to download a certain number of images. You probably won’t need the full size image files, so this should be a fairly inexpensive exercise, and you’ll also be purchasing the right to use the image for advertising and web. (If you intend to use the image on anything that is going to be resold, such as a t-shirt or card, then you’ll need an extended licence.)

If you have very specific needs, maybe you could approach a professional or semi-professional photographer to take a series of shots for you? This is surely a more expensive option, but the advantage is that you’ll get exactly what you’re after. Perhaps try approaching the local student photography society (usually called something like photosoc) and commissioning someone to help you “on the cheap”.

Of course, you could take the images yourself? If you choose to do this, don’t be fooled into thinking that buying a big, expensive DSLR camera is going to help you. If you don’t know what you’re doing with it, then the chances are that the images will be worse than they would be if you used a compact point-and-shoot. Many of the consumer compact cameras are very very good these days. Just to prove my point, take a look at the Digital P&S Photo Club on Flickr.

If you’re taking portraits of staff, my advice would be don’t try and replicate the pros. Do something different. Try to capture the subject in their surroundings, whether this is a studio or their shop. It’ll tell the visitor more about your staff than a badly taken attempt at a studio portrait.

I hope that helps. If you're really stuck, I've done a product photography tutorial that I'll be releasing in 3 parts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Monster
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Clever Site Design - Layout

2011-03-24T14:56:00.008Z

Frooly makes site layout simple. Our web team have done the hard work creating reams and reams of unintelligible code, so that all you have to do is select the kind of information you want to add (BISH), move it where you want it (BASH), and save (BOSH).

The great thing is that you can add pretty much anything you want. However, we don’t want to startle customers by slapping them in the face with the most jam-packed website they’ve ever seen. There’s a delicate balance between elegance and mayhem...and this is where we’ve got to get smart with our site layout.

Site layout is about a comfortable mix of creativity and common sense. Think carefully about the content you really want to show off. A collection of your best products or an image or two, and a news feed with updates for your customers are really all you need on your home page. You don’t have to give too much away on the first page. Remember that you can create more pages with maps, contacts forms and products.

Creating a sensible collection of pages on your site will encourage customers to navigate through it (providing that your content is interesting) and digest things easily. Packing it all into two pages will trigger an adverse reaction from the user. It’s like eating a curry and a chocolate bar at the same time. They both taste great, but there is such thing as too much of a good thing...

If you’ve got something that you really want people to see, don’t stick at the foot of your page. The majority of internet users won’t scroll down there, unless the rest of your content is absolutely brilliant too!

And if there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’d be think twice about a company history. To be brutally honest, nobody cares enough to read who, what, where and when about your company. Keep it simple, introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Matador
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Here's a Helping Hand

2011-03-22T14:38:00.002Z

Following the announcement of Facebook integration for frooly shop owners a week or so ago, it’s become apparent that a number of people are a little confused or are having a bit of difficulty integrating the two for themselves.

So, to this end, we’ve put together a short video tutorial that’ll guide you smoothly through the process.

Enough said!

We hope that helps!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Martian
tweet me @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Clever Site Design (part 1) - A Splash of Colour

2011-03-17T09:48:00.005Z

Ok, first things first, we need to consider our background and colour scheme. It’s important to think about your brand here and who your customers are.

For your background, you’ve got two choices - a background image, or a background colour.

Colours can say a lot about you and create mood and feel. Blue can evoke feelings of calm or cold, yellow is often associated with comfort or fun, green with nature, and red with anger and danger as well as love and romance.

Try and choose something that says something about you as a business, tells people what your attitude is, or reflects what you do. Remember that very bright background colours can sometimes detract from what you’re trying to say or sell and that red should be used with caution, as it may draw attention away from what you’re saying or selling.

Background images can help you add an extra level of identity to your shop. If you’ve got a minute, take a look at The Button Tin and Flock Boutique, both of whom have used background images to good effect in-store.

The most effective background images are some sort of texture or pattern. Be careful you choose something that will repeat well though, otherwise you’ll end up with a tiled effect across your page. If you’re looking for a pattern, then stock image vendors like fotolia have good selections. Simply type in “floral pattern” or “texture” and hit go (you'll have to buy a standard license for each image you download, which costs anywhere from £1 to £3).

When you’re choosing the rest of your colour scheme, try out a number of combinations. You’ll need to be careful to choose color schemes that match well, and if you’ve used a background image then I’d recommend neutral colours, whites, greys and pastels, so that you avoid making your site too busy (in a visual sense...hopefully it’ll have the opposite effect in a transactional sense!)

If you’re really stuck, try checking out other frooly shops for inspiration. We look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Musketeer
tweet me: @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Oh Dear...The Cogs Have Stopped Turning

2011-03-16T10:16:00.008Z

Remember that "Meet the Cogs..." video we made? (it was only two days ago) Well, we've got a confession to make:

We didn't complete the whole thing in one take.

There. It's out there. Are you happy now?

You should be, because this morning we've released a video compilation of the funniest outtakes, appropriately titled "When The Cogs Stopped Turning".

View the video here.

The Cogs That Make frooly Tick

2011-03-15T12:35:00.008Z

If you tried to call frooly HQ on Wednesday morning, you may have have been left feeling either frustrated or disappointed, and we apologise profusely for that. No, our phone lines were not down, but we did manage to coerce certain members of the office into filming a short introduction to the team, which meant that we were otherwise engaged.

You may have been fortunate enough to have already met one or more of our talent scouts. You may know any one of the lovely frooly team individually. You may know one of our team by name and by the sound of their voice on the telephone. But very few people have the pleasure of knowing all of us... and so now, we're offering you a two minute video that reveals a handful of the talent (dubious - ed.) behind frooly, and hopefully makes you feel more at ease when communicating with us... Although when you see Luke's wig, it might have the opposite effect!

(N.B Some were more reluctant than others to be in front of the lens!) Click here to view the video.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Monkey
tweet me: @rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com
frooly on YouTube

New Facebook Integration For Frooly Businesses!

2011-03-15T10:26:00.011Z

Link your frooly shop with your facebook business page!

Whether you think it's for better or worse, there's no denying that facebook has changed the world. The way people interact, communicate ideas, and respond to each other has changed so significantly that businesses have been forced to embrace social networking as a means of marketing their brand and engaging their customers.

Here at frooly, we understand that one recommendation from a friend or peer is far more powerful than a well placed advert, especially in terms of converting basic brand awareness into actions. That's why our phase one facebook integration was all about allowing shoppers to log in via facebook and share what they found with the people they know.

And now, facebook integration for frooly's business owners has arrived.

Our product development team have been working tirelessly on this exciting new release, which will allow all you shop owners to synchronise your facebook business page with your frooly shop. That means that when you're 'liked' on facebook, you're also 'liked' on frooly (and vice versa), and that those of you who have 500 fans on your facebook business page will now have (yes, you guessed it) 500 fans of your frooly shop!

It also means that when you add a news post or post a picture to your frooly site, or upload products to your frooly shop, you will be given the option to share that content with all your fans on facebook.

The theory is that increased exposure will result in increased sales... crazy logic, I know!!

How do you synchronise the two? Well, the next time you add something to your shop you'll be prompted. Just follow the instructions on the screen and go with it. If you can't wait until then, you are able to do it manually via your 'Business Settings'.

If you have any difficulties, let us know, so we can make the process as smooth as possible for all our shop owners.

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Monkey
@rich_heathcote
richard.heathcote@frooly.com

Clever Site Design. A Blog Series for frooly Shop Owners

2011-03-10T10:16:00.007Z

The internet has revolutionised retail, bringing unparalleled speed and convenience to the consumer. This is also a feature of the wider web, with website owners competing for the attention of increasingly demanding internet users. It is said that the average internet user makes a decision as to whether or not to navigate away from your site within the first 3 seconds of arriving, because there is so much choice online for them. This means that it is now more important than ever to get the look and feel of your site absolutely spot on so that your customers won't slip through the net.

So, you’ve either created a shop or website with frooly, or you're thinking about it. Whether this is your first foray into internet retail or just another virtual franchise in your chain of internet shops, frooly is aiming to make things simple for you to sell and make money online. To that end, I’ve written a four-part blog series to get you up and running and making the most of your frooly site so that shoppers want to find your site and, more importantly, stay to browse!

....oh, I’m Richard by the way!

In this series, we’ll be exploring:

Clever Site Design: A Splash of Colour (Helping you get your colour scheme right)

Clever Site Design: What Goes Where and Why? (talking you through layouts)

Clever Site Design: Image is Everything (a guide to using images on your site)

If you have any questions, or would like us to address a problem that you think other frooly shop owners might be having, please get in touch:

richard.heathcote@frooly.com
or tweet me @rich_heathcote

Richard Heathcote
Marketing Maestro
frooly.com

Firing Up the Frooly Community

2011-03-09T12:09:00.009Z

“I’m just loading up a kiln full of goodies”, Lianne Mellor announced as I entered her cosy little studio on Wednesday morning.

And sure enough, there she was, knelt over a small kiln in the corner of the room, packing it full with China, covered in what looked like blue patches...not what I had expected.

“This is how my china starts out life”, she explains. “I buy it from a family-run business in Stoke-on-Trent, and then I do all the illustrations myself. I call myself an illustrator...it just happens to be that I illustrate on China!”

Well, paper is over-rated anyway.

The blue paper patches are the transfers that she’s made from her illustrations. “They begin blue”, she explains when she sees my puzzled expression. “It’s so that the wrinkes and bubbles show. Once it’s fired it’ll go nice and colourful!”

Phew!

While studying for an architecture degree at the University of Sheffield, Lianne began selling her illustrations at local art markets. Graduating into a recession, job opportunities were few and far between and she ended up working for Cath Kidston in Liverpool (before she was cool), but she informs me that she “always wanted to do more with my illustrations and have a product”.

Lianne busies herself, making sure she’s made the best use of space in the kiln. After all, each cycle takes 12 hours, and she’s got a deadline to meet.

Lianne and her company Mellor Ware are a perfect example of how the frooly community can add more than just a web presence to your business. As I poke around her studio, she explains how she’s making a bespoke range of china for frooly favourites PJ Taste for their relaunch at Site Gallery.

“I was introduced to them through frooly. I went to a frooly training session, and I met Peter there. He brought a load of flapjacks” she recalls, “and we got talking” (as anybody would with a man who carries flapjacks around!)

“We had a series of consultations, and we decided on these angled bowls and baguette trays”. She shows me the beautiful China bowls that she’s already fired and readied. “With the illustrations I wanted to give that kind of organic, local, pulled from the earth feel”, and that was certainly evident.

As the kiln begins to heat up, so too does Lianne’s studio. The kiln’s insulation ensures that the room only reaches a comfortable temperature, and I decide that I might just stay there all day.

“I don’t have a TV, and I don’t have a microwave...but I’ve got one of those”, she says, pointing to her kiln. “Every house should have one!”

I’m not sure about that Lianne, but we’re certainly glad that you’ve got one.

Find Mellor Ware on frooly
View the whole video chat on our YouTube channel.

The Old Sweet Shop Tells Us Why They Love Frooly

2011-03-08T17:03:00.009Z

The Old Sweet Shop 23/02/11

TOSS recently became one of frooly’s top sellers, and has received the single most customer ‘likes’ of any shop in the marketplace. I went to visit proprietor Emma Hudson this week to present her with her ‘Top Seller Award’ and ended up staying for a great cup of tea and a chat:

R: Tell me a little bit about what you do.

E: It’s basically a shop and a gallery to showcase work by local artists, so all the artwork and crafts are handmade locally. I often get artists coming into the shop saying that they’ve heard about us, that they make this and that and would we be interested, but we also have an exhibition every three months, which I curate, so it’s a nice balance.

R: Do you think it’s important to sell online as well as from your shop?

E: I think it’s really important. For the first three years (of TOSS) I didn’t sell online, and that was more a time thing, but I do think it’s really important, especially as it helps you broaden your horizons. Here I am, in Nether Edge, and it’s a great place, the shop is ideally situated here, but I don’t get thousands and thousands of people coming past every week, and that’s why I find selling online so important, because it’s easier to direct people online sometimes than it is to physically get them to the shop.

R: Have you experienced an increase in your sales since you joined frooly?

E: Yes, certainly in the run up to Christmas. You probably know more than me about the figures though!

 
R: How much time on average do you commit to keeping your site up to date?

E: During December I spent a good amount of time, but that was sort of easy in a way, because December is my busy period anyway, so I’m constantly on the go and it was easy to keep up to date. I’ve probably not updated it as much as I should have recently to be honest, but it’s on the list of things to do...and it doesn’t take long, and I enjoy doing it as well!

R: And how have you found the upload process?

E: Just to get the site set up in the first place was really easy, even if you’re a technophobe. This sort of thing can be really daunting. You think “blimey, I’m setting up a website!” but it’s really simple really, and it was nice to have control over the look and feel of it, which is really important to me, because I want to be able to recreate what I’ve got in the shop on my frooly site.

R: Do you sell anywhere else online?

E: No. I’ve thought about it, but it didn’t make sense to me. Once I became aware of frooly and became a user, I thought it might be a bit confusing for my customers to have shops in different places and frooly was providing everything I needed.

R: Can you sum up frooly in one sentence?

E: I’d say it’s an online marketplace for independent businesses to sell online.

R: Textbook answer! What is your favourite thing about the frooly marketplace?

E: I think my favourite thing is that it feels like I’m part of a community. It’s all independent businesses and everyone’s just trying to do their own thing, so it feels like we’re all in it together. I know quite a few people on there, both personally and other businesses, and it just feels like everybody’s helping each other and supporting each other. I also really believe in the buying local and supporting local business ethos, and that’s what I like about frooly, because you’re doing that.

R: Why do you think you’ve had success on frooly?

E: Well it’s difficult to tell, because the majority of my success came over Christmas, and it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions.

R: Has your customer base changed significantly?

E: It’s been interesting because I’ve had a real mix of customers. I’ve had quite a few customers from Sheffield, and I found that quite interesting, and I’ve been thinking, why are they buying online? Why don’t they just come in to the shop? It’s great that even though people have busy lives, they’re still able to buy from me. I’ve also had several enquiries from people in the netherlands...

R: How would you like to see frooly work for you in the future?

E: Well the shop is already growing as a result of being on frooly, that is already happening. In terms of features and products, frooly is already sort of doing it already with workshops and things, but I’d like to see a bit more networking, getting people to meet face to face, that might be fun. That’s one of the interesting things about the internet these days, that you can meet people that you wouldn’t meet normally, and you feel like you know some of these people. Like, on frooly I recognise certain people and brands, and it’d be nice to meet some of them and put a face to the businesses.

You can view the full interview on frooly’s YouTube channel
You can visit the Old Sweet Shop's frooly site here.

Happy New Year - frooly Jan 11 update

2011-01-05T12:27:00.004Z

Hope you're not feeling as guilty as I am for a diet of mince pies and Quality Street this Christmas.

There have been a few changes recently, so I thought I'd give you a heads up

VAT Changes

Frooly has complied with the 2.5% rise in VAT. This means both our charges and your shop prices have been changed automatically. If you have a shop, you may notice some interesting price round up changes which you may want to look at.

New Design Themes (better and easier)

We have now released a much improve design and theme system. You can change everything, to make your site look ace. Don't forget you can even add a domain name too. I have attached some example screen grabs and see two cool sites below:

http://www.frooly.com/yaelle

http://www.frooly.com/latrinogals

Log into your site and go to 'Theme' to find out more

Facebook Integration (part 2)

You can now 'Like' and 'Comment' on any product, business and news item / blog post on frooly. This automatically tells your all friends on Facebook - its a powerful 'social recommendation' tool - people buy from people, so encourage all your fans to comment. 'Like' yourself too - the word will spread.

We have loads more Facebook stuff planned - like garlic bread, its the future.

500 Independent Businesses on frooly

Something of a milestone! We are delighted to announce that frooly is home to 500 independent business. Our mission is to save choice on the high street by making it convenient to shop local. Our goal is to build an alternative high street for 100,000 retailers, makers, artists and more in the next 3 years - you guys are the first 500, so thanks for your help in laying the foundations.

Spend £40 get £20 cashback - extended for January Sales

We have extended our £20 cash back scheme, so let your customers know - if they buy from you we will give them £20 cashback. It pays to shop local.

More info: http://www.facebook.com/frooly

System Updates

We are working flat out to speed up the frooly platform, over the next few weeks you'll see a new look and feel and a better marketplace. Plus did we mention? You can now create a free online shop

And finally, we are recruiting for Student / Recent Graduate Paid Interns - Account Managers / Marketing

In addition to your Account Manager's Gemma (Lady G), Mark and Luke, we have vacancies for 4 more people to join the team. Our philosophy is that good customer service is the best sales tool - so please let us know if you know anyone who may want a job.

More info: http://www.facebook.com/frooly

That's enough from me, here's to a happy and successful 2011 for us all!

Cheers

Michael Ord

frooly

@michael_ord

frooly help: How to get more fans on frooly AND get to the top of our directory

2010-10-06T17:14:00.006+01:00

We hope you like your new frooly,

We've tried to tip the balance in favour of small businesses - the hidden gems (i.e. you!) - this is the first in a few help posts to give you the secret to success on new frooly.

Get to the top of the frooly Directory by inviting more fans from your email list.

We rank the frooly Directory on 'Most Fans' and the frooly Homepage on 'Most recent'. #NewFrooly rewards content creation by aggregating all Blog Posts, Videos, Images and Products to present a personalised frooly.com for the user.

There's no need for SEO skills or IT Knowledge - if you add content, and help build our shopping community, you get rewarded with extra prominence. The rationale being that proactive site owners are most likely proactive business owners.

Your feedback is always welcome

Thanks

Michael

Founder, frooly.com

@michael_ord

Help Tip #1 - Get to the top of #newfrooly

Firstly, get a frooly site, then when you are logged in just copy and paste your emails from your contact list into the Invite Customers field on the frooly toolbar . They will receive an Invite Email from you which, like Facebook, can be clicked to 'join your site' - the more people join, the more your message is heard, and the more you will grow.

How to invite customers to join your frooly site?

This step by step info is taken from the frooly help system

1) Log in to frooly in the user bar, using your email address and password

2) Navigate to ‘promote’ on the business bar. Click on ‘Invite People’

3) You will be presented with the ‘Invite People’ page.

4) To invite customers to join your website use the "Invite Customers" section on the page, if you want to invite people to become staff use the "Invite Staff" section and refer to the Invite staff help below. To invite type or copy the email address of the customers, friends and colleagues that you want to invite to join your site.

You can put multiple email addresses in separated by a comma, for example john@hootmail.com,emma@geemail.com

They will receive an automated ‘invitation’ with your details on and can click the link to join your site. This process complies with data protection laws and gives the customer control over how you can contact them.

Put 1000’s of Email Addresses in at once. Copy and paste email addresses from a CSV file. This will automatically put the commas between the email addresses. If you copy and paste from a Microsoft Excel document you will have to put the commas in yourself!

To learn how to create a CSV file from an Excel document click here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/store/edit/advanced/advanced-03.html

Whatsgoodontheweb like us, they really like us!!

2010-08-12T15:40:00.000+01:00

Apparently we rock! So we just wanted to have a little song and a dance about this amazing review we've found online from whatsgoodontheweb it's made us very happy here at frooly HQ and a little bit gooey inside.

Appreciation is always welcome and hardly handed out, so thank you very much Mr Editor at whatsgoodontheweb

x

frooly Creative Workshops for FREE!!!

2010-08-12T14:22:00.000+01:00

Yes that's right you heard it, we're running some creative workshops for the grand total of diddly squat! We're helping to show you how to do Online Marketing, Social Media and most importantly Online Selling.

Online Marketing - It's all very well having a few pages online, but if you don't do anything to let anyone know they are there, how can you expect people to find you in the big-wide-ridiculously-noisy-internet-world? Luckily frooly will be on hand to give you some top tips and show you how the frooly platform can get you found

Social Media - For some the words 'Social Media' makes them run screaming for the hills. We don't blame you; where do you start? What is the best one or combination for you? Should you tweet or concentrate on getting fans. It can be daunting when you are first starting out so we'll guide you through the thorny forest to the golden goose.

Online Selling - It's not as easy as everyone thinks most people are trying to make a quick squid in one way or another using the internet. Some people have success and some don't. We'll show you how strong product descriptions using engaging language coupled with good photos helps you sell more. The key to frooly and the secret to your success is uploading products to a shop. Doing this instantly gets you traffic to your site and we'll show you how in this workshop.

Held at the Source in Meadowhall for further information and handouts, teaching you how to use your frooly site please click here

frooly Founding Members - Yorkshire

2010-08-11T14:20:00.000+01:00

We want to say a big thank you to all of the people who have supported us from the start, are still here in the middle and are patiently waiting for our actual big bang, which is still to come!

To this end we have created the frooly Founding Member Scheme as a way to thank all our Yorkshire Partners, whilst they have supported us in our Beta phase.

Over the coming months we expect huge growth and we know it is important to thank all those who were there in our infancy.

A frooly founding member will get the following benefits:

For a limited time, before we go national, all frooly plus sites get:

1. Money Back Guarantee - Sell more within 3 months or your money back - guaranteed!
2. 7.5% Sales Commission - for life (reduced from 14%)
3. Online PR Advertorial seeded throughout the web
4. Founding Member Certificate (woo-hoo!)
5. Free Practical Training

So 'where do I sign up?', is the raucous cry I hear. Well these places are limited (understandably) so go to www.frooly.com register with frooly plus for just £4.99 per month, pay as you go, with a money back guarantee.

We are only as good as our founding members so please pass it on to take advantage of this incredible deal. More importantly please show your support for the regions best local and independent businesses.

frooly Ambassadors Launch

2010-08-06T18:27:00.000+01:00

It was a sizzling hot evening when we launched the frooly Ambassadors package and to compliment it, we added some bubbles, delicious PJ Taste food including our very own frooly ferrer rocher, a group of brilliant Sheffield business people and frooly goody bags!.

We held the event in the location where it all began, Fusion Cafe, Butcher Works (read first blog!). There were so many supportive people there including some new faces, we struggled to work our way round the room!!

The presentation was really well received and it felt great that people finally understood what we were trying to achieve and wholeheartedly showed their support.

If you would like to earn some extra money by becoming a frooly Ambassador or would like some further information, please email gemma@frooly.com

We would also like to thank all the following people who helped the make the packed night such a brilliant success:

David Heugh for giving us the run of Butcher Works.
PJ Taste for the incredibly spread of delightful, fresh, organic food and frooly ferrer rocher, that everybody commented on.
Glyn from Primary AV who provided the equipment we needed to present
Fusion Cafe for letting us stage it in there
Kirsty Basram at Aalto Moderna for very cute goodies
Eleanor & James from Clickety Clicks for taking brilliant photos
Donna Beal of Darcys Traditional Sweets

Excellente!

Our Star Pupil - Sinth

2010-08-05T18:13:00.000+01:00

frooly was lucky enough to have the fantastic Sinthujan Arulselvam or Sinth as we came to know him, doing work experience for us. Due to a problem with some visas, Sinth was sadly unable to join his classmates for a trip to Singapore so we stepped in to help out and offer him an alternative. Singapore's loss was most certainly our gain as Sinth proved himself to be an exceptionally clever and invaluable asset to our team.

Sinth was the BiG Challenge Winner 2010 and at only 14 years old he developed, ran and made a profit of a staggering £2000 running indie nights at the famous Sheffield Leadmill!!! He showed himself to be a very mature 14 year old with very obvious entrepreneurial talents and his PPT skills ended up being the envy of the office.

A credit to his school Fir Vale, Sinth completed some research for us in mapping the competition, comparing online products and testing our site. He presented his results to the whole team with seemingly not a nervous stitch in his body. The presentation was beyond the level of many business presentations we have seen and his hard work demonstrated some key concepts, points and even some notes for the development team to take away and work on.

He was a hit with the team and a joy to work with although he beat everyone hands down at table football. We enjoyed having Sinth so much and he was such an asset, we have asked him to come back in his hols and he has said he would love to!

Aalto Moderna - Star frooly user

2010-08-05T18:06:00.000+01:00

Aalto Moderna - Featured Site

Aalto Moderna had previously had a website but were very disappointed with the standard of it and its lack of usability. Kirsty Basram also has a blog, twitter account and facebook account, dedicated to promoting her vintage clothes shop online.

To sell products online Kirsty would have had to make a substantial investment in an eCommerce solution, which would also require a lot of time investment, finding the right platform, commissioning the work, training and it might not be a good fit for her business.

Solution

frooly has provided Kirsty with a very low cost solution that she has quickly been able to adopt in her business. Aalto Moderna now has a website and can sell products online. By uploading products Kirsty has automatically increased the traffic to her website, through the frooly system, without having to become an expert in online marketing and search engine optimisation.

Summary

Uploading products equals an unbelievable increase in traffic to an online shop. The question that needs to be asked is, would a local, independent business ever get this kind of footfall offline without spending a lot of money?

Their Stats:

13121 Unique Hits (people visiting the website in May 2010)
16009 Total Hits (this may include return visitors in May 2010)

frooly on BBC Radio Sheffield!

2010-08-05T17:56:00.000+01:00

We just found a recording of frooly on popular blogging site 'Audio Boo'!

Recently, Gemma Baldan and Michael Ord spoke at the Business Link South Yorkshire Enterprise Show, and their BBC Radio Sheffield interview was conducted to promote this event.

Listen to the story of frooly straight from our very own Michael & Gemma

Why frooly?

2010-08-05T17:41:00.000+01:00

People often ask us 'Why frooly?' or Where did it all begin?' - if you are one of those people, we've written an article just for you...

Our Journey

frooly was born in Butcher Works, Sheffield and the inspiration transpired from some cool, independent silversmiths, such as Victoria Kershaw and Richard Priestley.

Michael Ord was desperately trying to get his Christmas shopping done online because it was convenient and because like many of us, he was working late at night building his empire, so all the shops were closed. He was shopping for his partner, Gemma and would be in trouble if he didn't get some good presents.

He bought some earrings from a large, well known online retailer. Because everyone knows this online retailer, they are trusted for online transactions and you can read customer reviews, which gives confidence when you cannot 'touch' or 'feel' gifts.

When the earrings arrived, Michael noticed that they had been delivered from a jewellery company with a warehouse in London, the large online retailer was just the shop window.

After Christmas, Michael was walking past Butcher Works which is next to his house. He noticed these fantastic silversmiths that had working studios in Butcher Works. They offered beautiful, bespoke, handcrafted earrings that were cheaper than the ones he had bought from the large online retailer.

Michael realised he would have got more 'gift kudos' and brownie points if he had bought the bespoke, 'made in Sheffield' jewellery, it would have meant more. He had a revelation and realised there must be so many more of these small, special businesses that people would much rather shop with, but are not aware of their existence. Not everyone is good at blowing their own trumpet.

Independent businesses produce some incredible products, services and work, often much better than hight street chains or big online companies and for better value. But just because someone makes beautiful jewellery doesn't necessarily follow that they know how to market themselves, have the time, resources or inclination to get found by more people.

How can we support our local businesses if we can't find them?

frooly is a great way of helping the best independent businesses get found without them having to become experts at 'online marketing' and 'Google'. We make it convenient to buy from 1000's of the best local businesses, using a one click payment system, arrange for delivery or collect and say hello.

By creating a marketplace for local, independent businesses, we are helping them connect with more customers and encouraging smaller businesses to flourish and thrive, bringing community back to the shopping experience, whilst applying the convenience of bigger stores.