the ultimate compliment

Ronnie Corbett (CBE) was given a special Christmas treat from one of our sellers, Layer Eight, this year. His grandchildren arrived on Christmas Day wearing matching ‘Two Ronnies Glasses’ t-shirts in honour of the famous comedian and his partner Ronnie Barker. Ronnie’s daughters Sophie and Emma are both notonthehighstreet.com fans, and bought the t-shirts featuring the duo’s iconic glasses for all his grandchildren to surprise their grandad.

Jim & Vicki Lockwood, founders of Layer Eight said “This is the ultimate compliment for us, and to have been part of the Corbett’s Christmas Day is amazing. We – like most of the nation – love Ronnie to bits and for us to help make him smile is somehow poetic after all the laughs he has given us over the years!”

Posted by jenniferbaldwin on 18 January 2012

Holly and Sophie hit Silicon Valley!

Last month Holly and Sophie were invited to California to meet with our investors, Greylock, who are based in the US and present at their LP (Limited Partners) Conference. Their trip was jam-packed with brilliant meetings which will no doubt play a part in defining the future of notonthehighstreet.com. They were rather humbled to attend an event with Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, and Henry McCane, the Chairman of Greylock, and were super-excited to get a personal tour of the amazing Google offices. They squeezed in a trip to the famous computer museum (where they were asked if they were in the right place! Their enthusiasm should have clearly showed that they were…). They also took the time to see the local craft and design talent in San Francisco city and, of course, they visited Alcatraz (because that’s a given when in San Francisco). An amazing trip all round – they’ve kept us very entertained with the stories!

Posted by jokite on 16 February 2011

we are proud to sponsor...

Discovering the unique and original comes second nature to us at notonthehighstreet.com, so this year we are hugely excited to be supporting East London Design Show, an event that itself supports small creative businesses and fresh design. We are delighted to see a selection of our sellers playing a key part in it. The event runs from Friday 3 – Sunday 5 December in the rather beautiful Shoreditch Townhall, and is designed to be a brilliant Christmas shopping fair that caters for all the family. The Crafthouse Cafe, decorated by notonthehighstreet.com, is on hand when you require some well-deserved tea and cake and a sit-down, and you can help create a knitted paper chain while you chill.

notonthehighstreet.com is also hosting two awards this year, for best notonthehighstreet.com seller at the show and for best newcomer.

Find out more about the event here.

We are pleased to offer notonthehighstreet.com customers 2 for 1 tickets. Simply click here for your voucher.

Posted by jokite on 19 November 2010

the Christmas gift favourites as chosen by InStyle, Elle Decoration, Marie Claire and Easy Living…

We love seeing our sellers and their gorgeous products in the press! In the run up to Christmas we spend hours pouring over some of our favourite titles to see who’s been featured in the hotly coveted Christmas gift guides. We were thrilled to see that many of our sellers had made it into the top spots. InStyle listed both the original London poster print by Wue and the hand thrown glazed bowl by Roost Living, whilst Elle Decoration opted for the bespoke single heart map by Bombus, Marie Claire selected the personalised initial coin purse by Alphabet Bags and the decorative frame chalkboard by Letterfest. Easy Living chose the personalised love hearts framed picture by sarah & bendrix. Take inspiration from the experts, we know we will be!

To see more press coverage for notonthehighstreet.com and for more gifts that the press love please click here.

Posted by emmawood on 16 November 2010

PM announces 'tech city'; Holly is there to represent small businesses

On Thursday 4th November, David Cameron announced his vision to create a UK version of Silicon Valley. This technology hub will stretch from Shoreditch, the vibrant area of London where technical start ups are currently taking root, through to Olympic Park. The 600,000 sq foot accelerator space would go with the grain in nurturing organic growth from the best in technical creative talent with the aim of becoming the most attractive place in the world for new technical start-ups to begin and thrive.

The big names in technology will all contribute. BT will bring forward the roll-out of superfast broadband, giving ‘tech city’ the fastest internet speeds in Europe. Google will create an innovation hub, while Facebook will provide a permanent home for their successful developer ‘garage’ programme. Intel, Barclays and Silicon Valley bank, to name but a few, will also be contributing to this leading technology destination.

Holly was honoured to be invited to sit on one of just two panels, as a tech-leader and representative of small businesses. In a room full of journalists and VIPs, and on behalf of notonthehighstreet.com and our small businesses, Holly openly questioned the government on their £200m equity pledge for growing businesses and how they will make the money more accessible to small businesses, as government loans of this nature have failed many businesses in the past. Offline, she was asked directly by one of the participating MPs to come back to him with a detailed account of why she felt these loans had previously not performed. Watch this space for developments!

Posted by jokite on 05 November 2010

nectar online business of the year!

We were thrilled to hear we had won nectar online business of the year. Nectar business small business awards acknowledge best practice, great ideas and outstanding achievements of UK Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This award is judged by a panel of experts, including James Caan, Star of BBC show Dragon’s Den and CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw Private Equity.

“Everyone has worked with such passion and energy to get to where we are today so it is very rewarding for our community to be recognised as a prestigious online company celebrating success even in this current retail climate.” Holly Tucker.

Posted by jokite on 27 October 2010

Sophie is judging the Website of the Year Awards!

Now in its second year, The Good Web Guide’s Website of the Year Award is a celebration of websites from small businesses and organisations. The awards provide an excellent way for online enterprises to gain recognition for the design, content, originality and interactivity of their websites. There is a great line up of judges this year, including notonthehighstreet.com’s very own Sophie Cornish. Sophie will use her experience in the online market to judge the sites from budding entrepeneurs accross the county. The winner be will announced at The Royal Institution, London on Tuesday 16 November. Good luck to all the contestants!

Posted by jenniferbaldwin on 30 September 2010

we've got the doodle bug!

We love to celebrate innovative designs from our partners, and one new product in particular is experiencing great success. The doodle duvet cover by Stitch designworks has been awarded Best New Product at Top Drawer, one of the most prestigious trade fairs in the UK. The doodle duvet is a 200 thread count, white cotton single duvet cover designed to resemble a giant piece of file paper. It comes with its own pack of eight wash-out colour pens, for drawing a masterpiece, writing a story or leaving a message – then the duvet cover can be easily washed to start all over again!

Chrissie Probert Jones, founder of Stitch designworks and creator of the doodle duvet cover, said the product was born from her passion for both textiles and stationery: “I just love the idea of going to bed under a blank sheet of paper to decorate at will, and then be able to wash and change completely. I love the slightly subversive side of giving people permission to draw where they normally shouldn’t and the freedom of totally wash-out colour so there are no limits to what you can do – a really positive addition to your interior and one you won’t tire of!”

We have a sneaky suspicion it might be the most talked about children’s Christmas present this year…

Posted by jenniferbaldwin on 22 September 2010

Holly appears on Sky News

Holly is getting to be an expert at TV appearances! She was interviewed by Joel Hills on Sky News at 10.45am this morning to discuss the recent investment in notonthehighstreet.com by Index Ventures and Greylock Partners. They discussed the opportunity of funding from individual private companies compared to banks and the success of notonthehighstreet.com. See Holly’s interview on Sky News here.

Posted by jokite on 02 August 2010

Holly and Sophie reveal next stage funding as reported in The Sunday Times

Many of you will have seen Holly and Sophie on the front page of The Sunday Times’ business section this weekend. Hugely exciting news, the article announced an investment of £7.5 million led by Index Ventures, who were joined by Greylock Partners. This funding will enable us to expand the team, enhance the website and underlying technology and to invest in other initiatives to improve the offering to our sellers and customers.

Commenting on the transaction on behalf of the company, Holly Tucker, Executive Chairman, said: “We are delighted to have such experienced and successful internet investors as Index Ventures and Greylock join Venrex and SPARK as shareholders. With their support we will strive to offer our customers the very best personalised online shopping experience and support our small business partners every step of the way.”

Ben Holmes, Partner at Index who will join the board, commented: “Consumers are increasingly looking for unique and personalised items, which are ever harder to find in today’s retail market. Holly and Sophie and their dedicated and passionate team have succeeded where many others have failed in using the internet to transform the way small businesses can find customers and transact online.”

Laurel Bowden, Partner at Greylock Partners, added: “Notonthehighstreet.com is one of the most innovative and original e-commerce businesses to come out of the UK with the future capability to support thousands of small businesses in Britain and abroad.”

Watch this space for exciting developments!

Posted by jokite on 02 August 2010

squ-eel for Heidi

It was a delight to see Heidi Mottram featuring in today’s Metro, for all you non-Londoners who might have missed it. Her stunning eel skin bags and purses have been a huge hit on notonthehighstreet.com ever since she joined us, and we love them in the office for their softness, satisfying shape and vibrant colour palette. As graduate from London College of Fashion and Central St Martin’s, she has worked with many of the most famous fashion designers, and continues to develop the use of eel skin so keep an eye out for upcoming new designs.

The perfect gift for your best friend, or to add to your wish list…

Posted by jokite on 17 June 2010

We're in the Telegraph's 50 best websites!

Websites that are leading the online – and social – revolution…

Who, little old us?

Well, not so little any more. But the truth is, we have only just celebrated our 4th birthday so we are still pretty young, so we were hugely chuffed to appear in this Telegraph article, as one of the best shopping sites, alongside netaporter.com and ebay.co.uk.

And we feel compelled to respond to Jasper Gerard and his plea about our knitted-effect ceramic beakers.

The answer is, you don’t need one. But the reason you must have one (and it’s the whole reason our site works) is because it is beautiful.

And for that reason, you have one in the post! Think of it as a very special thank you gift: distinctive, different and handmade with love.

Posted by jokite on 25 May 2010

Holly and Sophie have their third TV appearance

We were very proud of Holly and Sophie this week when they appeared as the guests of the day on BBC 2’s Working Lunch. We huddled around computer screens and TVs to watch the live streaming of Tuesday’s programme, as the notonthehighstreet.com founders chatted about the business. We were amongst the half a million viewers who tune in daily to see the latest business, consumer and workplace news from across the country.

Watch Holly and Sophie on the programme now on the BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sjtqt/Working_Lunch_18_05_2010/

Despite our very best plans to make sure the site was equipped for a large amount of hits during this period, visitors exceeded all expectations so please accept our apologies if you experienced a slow site around lunchtime on Tuesday!

Posted by jokite on 21 May 2010

so who is the small business favourite for the election? We reveal the results of our survey

In 2008 we ran a survey to learn about the hopes and concerns of our small businesses and relayed the results to the Government and the media.

In the run up to the general election and with the final party leaders’ television debate on 29th April focusing on the economy, we thought it was time to run another in-depth survey and over 400 of our female entrepreneurs have spoken out about their hopes and concerns.

The survey concluded:

• David Cameron’s Conservative Party considered best small business champion with the greatest understanding of small business

• Conservative Party at top of election poll although vast majority undecided with Labour and Liberal Democrats equally low, and running neck and neck behind in attracting the small business vote

• Nearly half say they see no signs of a Labour government making a positive difference to small business, less than 6% say Brown puts a high value on the role of small business in the UK economy and only 0.5% say they feel well supported by a government which understands small businesses needs

• Only 3.3% of small businesses say Labour’s recent budget announcement is enough to get them to vote labour

• Easily available start-up and early stage grants are small businesses’ greatest demand followed by better tax breaks

• E-commerce is key to small businesses with nearly half saying they would never have never gone into business if they couldn’t sell online

• Lack of finance and e-commerce knowledge is the greatest obstacle to growth

• Small business sector remarkably strong with over one third saying they have been unaffected by the economic downturn and 23.9% reporting annual turnover is up

• More small businesses have used credit cards to fund their business than have applied for a government grant or taken out a business bank loan or personal bank loan.

Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish, co-founders of notonthehighstreet.com, said:

“83.4% of the small businesses that took part in our survey told us that they believe there is an important job to by done by notonthehighstreet.com in representing the small business community to the government and the media, so we are pleased to be giving our warts and all report in the run up to the general election.

With over 90 per cent of the 1,500 small businesses we support run by women, we hope this survey will help get the vital female entrepreneur voice heard. Our survey clearly shows that whoever gets into power in the coming election has got their work cut out. The small business sector is strong in poor economic times with hundreds of thriving businesses telling us they are riding high above the recession. But in order to grow this vital part of the UK economy politicians must get real about small businesses demands. We undertook a similar survey two years ago and these latest results show feelings are even more strongly against the government. The same issues are being highlighted again two years on but the government clearly hasn’t listened. We invite each of the party leaders to come and meet us and we will be pleased to tell it to them straight and provide them with invaluable information about our small businesses and what they really want.”

If you have more thoughts on this, we’d love to hear them. Comment below or email us.

(in)decision bag by Mr.PS

Posted by jokite on 29 April 2010

Charlotte's style

Sneaking a peak through OK magazine for celebrity gossip took on a whole new dimension when we spotted one of Delightful Living’s personalised house signs in one of the photos! Charlotte and Gavin have their very own pub (to keep them out of the eye of the media) down the bottom of their garden, and have very stylishly hung a Delightful Living sign outside which bears the pub’s name, The Cockerel’s Quiff. Thanks for making such a fabulous choice Charlotte!

We definitely think it is something to crow about (sorry).

Posted by jokite on 29 April 2010