IS YOUR CHARITY BENEFITNG FROM THE BOOM IN ONLINE SHOPPING?

Join the shopping revolution and fundraise 365 days a year

YOUR CHARITY’S OWN MARKETPLACE

We provide a fabulous shopping experience, where your supporters can shop from 100+ carefully chosen small businesses all in one place. Our familiar style of marketplace works much like Amazon or ASOS except every sale brings a donation to charity. Use our platform as an all year round fundraising resource. Create your own virtual fair campaigns supported by special offers from our brands.

preview of blb marketplace

Our CHARITY partners

Plan your campaigns

Schedule your calendar of events e.g. Valentines, Easter, Mother’s Day .... Consider options e.g. selling your own merchandise, getting a sponsor, prize draws, vouchers, how you will advertise your events.

We create your unique page

A personalised landing page with your logo, banner and colours, tailored to your needs and set to collect donations.

You invite your supporters

Promote your page’s unique URL to your email list, social media, local press, sponsors, ambassadors, mail out flyers.

Shop on BLB

Shoppers browse 1000’s of products, add to their cart, make one final payment.

Brands despatch

Orders are relayed to our brands behind the scenes who despatch purchases.

Charity gets paid

Purchases that come from your fair are tracked and 10% of sales go to you, paid monthly.

why partner with us?

EASY

We do the heavy lifting enabling you to act fast

thousands

of curated products ready to be bought all in one place

ENGAGING

Stay connected to your supporter base

LOCAL

Include your own guest brands and stallholders.

LONGEVITY

Keep the fundraising going all year round

reach

Broaden your supporter base

FLEXIBLE

Include silent auction, prize draw, sponsors

EXPERIENCE

Offer supporters a great shopping experience

"It's a great idea and people seemed to love the idea and thank you for all you did to support our 2 week slot”

"I am really grateful, and may I say what a 'Brilliant' idea Brilliant Little Brands is.”

"On a personal note as an events organiser I do hope I will be working with you again”

WHAT CHARITY PARTNERS GET

Key Features

Your very own shopping page

Access to 100+ brands

A curated selection of small independent businesses not found on every high street.

Marketing support

Benefit from BLB’s marketing in national press, social media and to our own mailing list.

Free Prize Draw

Use our system to sell tickets for a prize draw or raffle ( if you have the appropriate licence)

Automation of Commission

No reliance on trust to collect your commission. No codes for your supporters to enter. Easy for you and easy for shoppers.

Simple set up

Just send us your page banner and we will do the rest.

10% of sales donated

We deduct 10% of all sales you generate at source on your behalf

Feature your favourites

Invite some of your local brands, who your supporters know and recognise, to join BLB

Extra Donations

We can collect gift aided donations via your page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Drop us an email if we haven’t answered your question…

How it works

What is BLB?

We provide a fabulous shopping experience for charity fair supporters to buy from our select boutique brands using a familiar style of marketplace, similar to Amazon or ASOS. We offer our platform to charity partners to host their own virtual fair. Our 100+ curated brands commit to donate 10% to charity.

How can charity fairs benefit?

When partnering with BLB a charity can offer its supporters 100+ brands to shop from and a professional platform that will be available for them to use 24/7. 10% of every purchase made from your shoppers will be donated to your charity.

How does it work?

Each fair has its own dedicated home page within BLB to which they promote to their supporters and followers. This is personalised with your own logo and branding. Shoppers can browse our extensive range of well chosen products and buy them by adding them to a cart just as they would in Amazon or ASOS. The transaction is all done in one checkout. Orders are despatched directly by the brands to the shoppers.

How is it different from hosting our own online events?

Most virtual fairs are a directory linking to various vendors’ own websites. Customers use a code to identify their purchase with your charity. BLB used this system when we first launched. Sadly, customers often forgot to enter the codes so donations were often lost. Having made a purchase on one website we found customers were less likely to return to the directory for more shopping.

To maximise and secure your donations we have invested a great deal of time and resource into a fully featured ecommerce website. It is dedicated to hosting virtual fundraising web pages and events for charities, making it quick and easy for them to offer a fantastic range and breadth of products, all seemingly under their own umbrella.

Financials

What charges are there for charities using the platform?

Our platform is free for charities to use so long as they meet our basic fundraising criteria:

They must commit to a minimum of 3 campaigns a year which they will promote to their supporters.
They must generate £50 of sales per month (£600 annually), otherwise they pay a modest hosting fee of £5 per month (£60 annually.) This is levied by way of a returnable deposit of £60.
If your charity has other bespoke requirements, let us know and we can offer a quote.

So who covers BLB’s costs?

We make a modest annual charge to our brands – equivalent to a single ‘table fee’ – and also take between 5-10% commission on sales.

Do you charge us to sell merchandise and tickets?

We make a 5% admin charge on sales of charity merchandise – Christmas cards etc. This includes the 2.5% card handling fee that we pay on your behalf for each sale.

How do you attribute sales to specific charities?

We use ‘behind the scenes’ tracking of visitors to the website so whenever a sale is made we attribute it to the referral link that the shopper first used to arrive at the site. Using a ‘cookie’ we can keep track of any future sales from the shopper even if they don’t revisit your fair’s landing page for a while (for up to 180 days). Once a sale is attributed to your charity, all future sales from that shopper will also be attributed .

Do you rely on trust for brands to make the donations?

No! We deduct the commission at source and hold on to it until the returns period has expired.

When will we receive the funds and how?

We use a third party tracking service to monitor the sales attributed to referrers’ links. It factors in time for any refunds issued for returns before paying out. Funds are paid monthly. Over the Christmas trading period we offer customers an extended returns period to the first week of January. This would be reflected in the timing of post-Christmas payments.

Can I monitor our progress in real time?

Yes! You can access your own dashboard and view orders and donations earned in real time and see when they will be available to pay-out to the charity.

About BLB

How does BLB curate it's brands?

The four directors review every application for membership. We do not accept all-comers and use our wide network of contacts to research applicants. We avoid brands that are predominantly wholesalers and most of our applicants are established on the charity and sports event fair circuit.

Charities can recommend local or regular brands to be members and we will accept your proposal as a reference. We reserve the right to restrict membership in oversubscribed categories e.g. jewellery & home fragrance etc.

Do you have an ethical / sustainable policy with your brands?

We have been founded on the principle of socially responsible shopping, all of our members have a track record of donating 10% of their sales at charity events. We do not tempt customers with discounts but give them opportunity to make a difference in their community. We select brand members for the quality and uniqueness of their product and actively seek out those who have the highest ethical and sustainable standards

Who is behind BLB?

Our founders, Emily & Mark Bradley and Amanda & Nick Hamlyn have backgrounds in Digital Marketing, Event Management, Retail Buying and Merchandising.

How did BLB start?

Brilliant Little Brands was set up in the early days of the Covid 19 lockdown by a group of small businesses owners from the Charity Fairs circuit, as a way of supporting each other. Our directory website showcased brands who all donate 10% to charity. We started with Age UK’s CoronaVirus Appeal and raised £1000 in a fortnight! In May we partnered with some of the charities whose events we used to attend and launched our first Virtual Fair. We have been running events ever since, raising over £6000 in 4 months.

Is BLB not-for-profit?

BLB was run on a voluntary basis from March 2020. In October 2020 we launched our marketplace website where our members pay us an annual listing fee and a sales commission .

Getting started

How soon can you set up a page for us?

If you are happy to run with our core members, we can get you up and running in a matter of days. If you would like to invite your own stallholders to join BLB, add special features (prize draw etc) we may need 2 – 4 weeks depending on the time of year.

Does it matter how many campaigns are being hosted on BLB at the same time?e?

No, not at all as each fundraiser has their own dedicated landing page. You will include a direct link in all your marketing so your supporters will go straight to your page. To prevent overlap we won’t book a campaign if another is already scheduled in your region. This isn’t always possible in the run up to Christmas.

Would my charity or committee be eligible to host a shopping page on BLB?

We host fairs for both local organising committees and directly for charities. Either way, you need to be raising funds for a registered charity. A key requirement is to have the resource and commitment to promote the online event to your supporters with a dedicated email list of at least 1000+ supporters, have very active social media and a network of proactive ambassadors who commit to promote your campaigns. Ideally you will have held a physical fair before and have contacts you can reach who conform to an affluent shopping demographic.

Can more than one committee / branch host a page?

Yes, this is a great way of increasing your reach and sharing the marketing campaign. Your page could be a collaboration of neighbouring committees who each have their own 2 week campaign during the year. The money raised during each campaign could be attributed to that branch.

How do I open a BLB shopping page and book my fundraising campaigns?

Here is a link to an application form where you can tell us a bit more about you

Your Shopping Page

What would our URL be?

www.brilliantlittlebrands.com/YOURCHARITYNAMEHERE

How are our campaigns marketed and promoted?

The success of your fundraising depends on how many visitors you can bring to your page.

You need a marketing plan aimed at a wider audience than just your email database. Harness the power of social media to spread the word to your wider community. We will give you some tips and ideas of how to do this but if social media isn’t your thing, involve younger family members to help spread the word and get your campaign in front of a new audience.

Our brand members will also mention your campaigns in their social media. BLB sends out regular newsletters to its own mailing list too as well as our own advertising campaigns on social media.

How much effort / resource is required from the organising committee/charity?

Our platform is ready to host your fair so you don’t need to be a technical wizard! Your marketing campaign is key and the effort you put in will be reflected in the success of your page. Consider the support your charity head office can offer. Do they have celebrity ambassadors in your area who would be happy to publicise your event? Approach family members or work colleagues to help build your social media reach.

To what extent can BLB customize our shopping page?

This depends on how quickly you want to launch your page. Every page will be personalised with its charity’s banner and some information about your fundraising. Given a longer lead time we can add extra features to make your page really unique.

Can we invite our own “stallholders”?

Yes, you can invite up to 12 of your favourite stallholders to join BLB or choose to feature existing BLB members. “Featured Brands” will appear in a gallery at the top of your page and you can also include some of our existing members. In addition to their joining fees, brands will pay your charity a “table fee” of £20 for this premium listing.

How long will my page be live for?

Your page will be live for a year from launch. Each of your campaigns will run for a two week period.

Will my page/ campaigns be competing with others using BLB?

You will send your supporters a unique link that takes them straight to your fair page so they will not be aware of any other campaign.

Who 'owns' the customer contact data?

To comply with data protection, customer details can only be processed by the parties the customer contracts with, which is Brilliant Little Brands and the Merchant.

Can we have access to customer data?

Where a customer purchases your charity’s merchandise or makes a donation via Brilliant Little Brands, then you will be a data controller for those contacts and may process the data in keeping with your own privacy policy.

What's your privacy policy?

You may view BLB’s privacy policy here: link

Can we include sponsors on our page?

We can incorporate your sponsors’ logos in a prominent place on your page. In return, sponsors could pay for targeted advertising on social media, local press & radio. Suggest they match-fund what you raise to an agreed limit. They could also publicise your campaigns to their mailing list.

Fairs hosted at BLB this autumn…

Lord Mayor of London’s Appeal – DragonFest Shopping Village …14 September 2020

RDA Autumn Gift Fair Newbury Riding for the Disabled …3 October 2020

GRAND AUTUMN FAIR for Action Medical Research Beaconsfield …5 October 2020

Christmas Fair for Action Medical Research Spalding …19 October 2020

Macmillan Merton Early Early Christmas Fair …24 October 2020

CAWC International’s Christmas Fair for Motor Neurone Disease Association …2 November 2020

Chuff’s Scotland Christmas Fair for Riding for the Disabled …9 November 2020

Gift of Sight Christmas Fair St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital …16 November 2020

Farleigh Hospice Christmas Fair …1 November 2020

Dumfries Charity Christmas Fair for CLIC Sargent …16 November 2020

The Hampshire Fair …23 November 2020

Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum …30 November 2020

Hampshire Office:

Social Media & Customer Communications
Emily Bradley
emily@brilliantlittlebrands.com
social@brilliantlittlebrands.com

01264730445 / 07740707501

Marketing & Website
Mark Bradley
mark@brilliantlittlebrands.com
marketing@brilliantlittlebrands.com

01264730445 / 07771642665

Surrey Office:

Brand Management
Nick Hamlyn
nick@brilliantlittlebrands.com
brands@brilliantlittlebrands.com

02084040623 / 07891569059

Fair Management
Amanda Hamlyn
amanda@brilliantlittlebrands.com
fairs@brilliantlittlebrands.com

02084040623 / 07976718373‬