Member Article

PopUp Britain sponsorship up for top award

Financial Management software firm Intuit’s partnership with national enterprise campaign StartUp Britain has been shortlisted for a national award.

Judges at the Corporate Engagement Awards looked at the company’s long-term sponsorship of the campaign’s retail arm PopUp Britain and shortlisted it under the Category Best Open-ended Corporate Sponsorship.

They were impressed with how Intuit had provided its new handheld payment system Intuit Pay for free to fledgling retail entrepreneurs involved in the initiative - as well as financial backing for the nine stores opened by PopUp Britain across the UK so far since it opened its first shop in July 2012.

StartUp Britain co-founder Emma Jones said: “PopUp Britain has breathed life back into the high streets and enabled small businesses to make sales, meet customers, learn from each other and test new markets in an affordable, flexible way. Without Intuit, none of this would have been possible.”

PopUp Britain offers short-term opportunities to start-ups and micro businesses from all over the UK. It is part of a pioneering initiative aimed at matching online retail start-ups with empty high street shops. The scheme has so far opened shops in Piccadilly, Chelsea, Victoria, Poulton-Le-Fylde, near Blackpool, Camberley in Surrey, Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire as well as others around London.

Mike Williams, MD Intuit UK, said: “When StartUp Britain approached us to take the leading sponsorship role in PopUp Britain, we jumped at the chance. Its focus on small start-up and micro businesses trading and selling via temporary, often mobile trading areas, works perfectly with our target market for our payment solution, Intuit Pay.

“We’re delighted we’ve helped so many tenants take card payments so they never miss a sale whilst in the shop and that many of them are now using Intuit Pay in the day-to day running of their business.

“PopUp Britain has offered hundreds of small business owners the opportunity to give their business a boost by trading face-to-face with their customers and our partnership has helped us to position ourselves as a key player in the growing handheld payment market. This experience has reinforced the view that our product is well suited to the increasing number of entrepreneurs looking to not only make sales online, but to also via short-term trading in pop-up stores and markets.

“Our on-going partnership with PopUp Britain not only provides an ever-increasing market for our product, it also helps us quantify exactly how and why our product stands out, while supporting the retail giants of the future.”

The winner of the awards, run by Communicate Magazine, will be announced on September 26.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by StartUp Britain .