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Vi’s Top Voucher Picks for August

Friday, August 28th, 2009

I thought it was about time I had another look through the vouchers that are on offer via BView, and let you know which ones are my favourites.  There are some good ones on there at the moment too, vouchers that can save you a pretty penny if you use them right!

My first pick is a freebie (well I do like a good freebie!).  Lots of youngsters are generally thinking about learning to drive at this time of year, and it’s an expensive thing to do.  Well up and down the country there are a few driving schools listed on BView at the moment who are offering free lessons.
Lakeside School of Motoring in Dorchester, Starfish Driving in Weston-Super-Mare, Devans Driver Training in Plymouth, and Walkers Driving School in North Lanarkshire are all offering the first lesson free.  SLK Driving school in Blackpool is offering a free lesson when you refer a friend – the more friends you refer, the more lessons you get for free. All good stuff!

My second voucher pick is for Zizzi Italian restaurant who are offering a choice of two deals at the moment.  The first is two main meals for £10, and the second is buy one main meal, get the second for just £1.  Both are excellent deals as Zizzi do some really nice food.

For my third pick, I’ve stuck with the food theme again, and it’s another fab deal this time from Pizza Express who are offering Free pizza when you buy any other pizza at full menu price.  It is only available on collection, and there are a couple of exclusions, but it’s still a great way of having a really nice meal on the cheap.

How many of you can’t wait for the kids to go back to school?  Well here’s one for any of you who need to buy back to school items and just can’t face taking the little dears into town!  M&S are offering Free delivery on school wear with the code SCHOOL09 as well as having lots of 3 for 2 offers on school wear items.

Finally, my last pick for this month, is one that is close to my own heart being a green issue.  Clean and Green Ltd. Are offering 20% off all orders placed and free delivery by using the link on the BView site.  Now that is a good way to try a green cleaning product if you’ve not already done so before!

Good luck, and feel free to let me know what your favourite vouchers are too.

Tags: discounts, money savings, promotions, special offers, vouchers
Posted in News, Savings | Comments Off

Making the most of the scrappage allowance

Monday, June 29th, 2009

It’s been a great temptation for many car buyers to take advantage of the scrappage allowance scheme introduced by the government this year. The Scrappage Allowance / Vehicle Discount Scheme is a £300 million scheme which has been introduced by the UK government during the 2009 budget which involves the scrapping of a car or small van which is over 10 years old. The government is offering a £1000 incentive which will be matched by participating manufacturer’s dealers . The discount is deducted from the price you pay for the new vehicle.

Tempted and willing to research I had a look at the offers from Ford and found some interesting figures, they’re offering a £2K government scrappage amount and they’re going to match it, which sounds amazing, but that’s for a Style at £12,295 after reductions, then another £1,892 as a fee for the credit which stands at a whopping 7.9 APR. Suddenly the offer isn’t quite so tempting.

And there are caveats: The vehicle must only be first registered on or prior to 31 August 1999 and the owner must have owned the vehicle continuously for at least one year prior to the order date of the new vehicle.
The scrapped vehicle should have a UK address on the registration certificate (V5C) and has either a current tax disc and current MOT certificate, or has a current tax disc and a current Hackney Carriage Licence, or has an MOT certificate which expired no earlier than 14 days before the date of the contract for a new vehicle.
Neither vehicle (scrappage or new) should exceed 3.5 tonnes.
The purchased vehicle must be first registered in the UK on or after 18 May 2009 and have no former keepers.
The registered keeper of the new vehicle must be identical to the registered keeper of the vehicle to be scrapped. The Scrappage Allowance will be payable in relation to the first 300,000 new vehicles purchased nationwide or until 28 February 2010, whichever is sooner.

My reservations were repealed by the more promising offers with Kia, a subsidiary of Hyundai , where you can get a Picanto for a mere £4,495 on the road with a £2,000 combined saving with the new incentive. As a cash purchaser with no ridiculous APR to pay on a credit agreement, you’d actually be making a reasonable purchase for a new car, though it should be borne in mind that a car decreases in value rapidly for those first days of ownership and then drops to it’s usual steadier decline, but with a sensible road tax bracket, great fuel economy, low insurance grouping of 2, 3 or 4 and all around nippy features, perhaps many of the savings are to be made later. You could also look at the Fiat Eco at £5,995 and Peugeot 107 Urban Lite from £6,945.

It’s only a true saving if you don’t pay the hiked credit/ finance fees and interest rates.

Tags: car, dealerships, government incentive, Savings, scrappage allowance, vehicle
Posted in Features, Findings, General, News, offers, Savings | 1 Comment »

BView redesign is now live!

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Hi there, Kat the designer here!

Myself and the whole rest of BView have been working really hard in the last few months to redesign BView. It’s gone live today… Go have a look around.  We haven’t changed any of the functionality; instead, we’ve just made the look more modern, and the ability to move through and contribute to the site easier!  It’s going to be refined over the next few months, but I hope you like it as much as I do (or if you don’t, please let me know)!  Here’s a few highlights from the design.

Search for vouchers and businesses

We’ve made the ability for you to search for businesses, or switch to search for vouchers as a function of the search, front and centre at the top of the page.  We have a very good, very fast search function, and it’s the easiest way to find businesses and money saving.

Simplified home page

In the past, we had been packing as much info as possible onto the homepage, but it meant that first time users who landed on the page were overwhelmed and couldn’t get a quick sense of what we do.  The new version picks out the most important aspects of our site and mirrors our slogan, gives people some navigation to get exploring and gives some solid examples of content for those areas.

Review entry right on the business profile

Before, people had to navigate to a new page in order to write a review.  Now, it’s right there on the business profile page. We’ve also put in helpers to describe what the ratings mean.

Simplified navigation

Before, navigation wasn’t consistently in the same place, buttons were all over the place, and the actions for a business weren’t very prominent.  Now, actions are always in the green menu, in the same place and prominently designed.

Simplified voucher display

Voucher search results display the logo, business name and category to give you a quick picture of the offerings, but when you’re on a business profile, that stuff is already there, and in the same frame in the business details.  So, we’ve simplified the voucher display for the business profile page to stop the repetition.

Focus on the business

Before, we put a lot of related content in with the business profile.  For the redesign we’ve made a real effort to put the spotlight on the business, and a clear distinction from related content.  This has meant a more simplified sidebar with less content, and the related businesses and reviews being put into the footer.  This way, we’ve let the primary content shine through, and people will be able to visually understand what is part of that business and what is not.

Bolder, more colourful design

We’ve brought in some reds, greens and blues along with the tan to make the whole page feel friendlier.  We’ve also made sure to let the content have room to breath.

Consistency and hierarchy

We’ve spent a lot of time creating a hierarchy of links and buttons. This means that we’ve been thinking a lot more about how people view the page, what they notice, and what fades into the background.  Because we have so many links on an average page (sometimes more than 75!), we’ve made a big effort to make important links stand out, and to let the rest still look like links, but blend in enough so on first glance they are not the first thing you see.

We’ve also brought the font of the logo into the design (on buttons and header bars) in order to make the whole design look more cohesive.  This new hierarchy also means that when we’re putting features into the page, there’s a system in place that the new element must fit in to. If you’re interested in the more in-depth discussion on the design and hierarchy, you can read about it here.  I go through the hierarchy and more on the process behind it.

What do you think?

I would love your feedback (whether it’s scalding or not) on what you think works or what you think doesn’t!

Tags: BView, design, new style, redesign
Posted in Announcements, News | 4 Comments »

BView, Joy and the tale of the inquisitive journalist

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

I received a telephone call last week, asking if I could speak to a journalist about my money saving experiences and BView, they were looking for someone female and articulate with children, a contrast to the single male they would interview to create balance. I stepped up to the challenge, somewhat dubious about my ability to articulate at the end of a busy week, but willing.
The reporter was straight to the point ‘What money saving vouchers have you used recently?’
Tesco , free delivery and some money off an order. My mind stumbled then, surely, somewhere in the midst of my teaching assessment and dropping the kids at nursery I had made some other purchase? eBay, of course, a lovely gothic top imported from China with reduced delivery charges.
‘Great’ enthuses the journo. ‘What else?’

You want more?  All my shopping has been online recently, there must be more. ‘Pizza,‘ I squeaked nervously down the phone, feeling more like this was a test of my financial savvy than a research opportunity. ‘Yes, I took the girls out for pizza and we got a pretty good deal.’ And indeed it was, there were two satisfied kids with faces decorated liberally with pizza and ice cream but I was happy as someone else would do the washing up.
Then the pièce de résistance sprang to the front of my mind. Bicycles. Christmas is a wonderous event in our household, my 3 year old twins are adored by friends and family alike, two golden girls with cheeky smiles and infectious giggles , treated with Dora The Explorer and Diego toys, My Little Pony and Disney Princess but not a single bicycle upon which to inflict their boundless energy.
Argos had a voucher featured on BView, £20 off toys and games ordered online. In the sale was the ideal pink and sparkly bicycle with training wheels and a doll seat and delivery in time for Christmas. Double discounts, sale items and vouchers and two perfectly girly bicycles for the ultimate Christmas gifts. A done deal.

The journalist dutifully took notes, now flooded with my details of financial acumen and my pleasure in saving.
‘And do you think these are genuine savings?’ he asks, a more academic question of opinion amongst the facts.

Now my opinion differs here. Some companies are merely advertising a sale to maintain face with their competitors, reducing tiny amounts of money off the items which just will not sell in order to legitimately put a sale sign in the window. Thereby drawing some extra clientele and making the non selling items appeal to those who cannot resist a bargain, no matter how pointless.
Then there are those who have a sale to make some money, despite the reduction in spending, clearing old stock, renewing interest and cutting their losses on items ordered months ago when the pound still had some economic strength and no sign of weakening.
Finally there are those who boost their prices up and then offer reductions, taking no responsibility for the price increase, using the recession, reduced provision, increased supplier prices and so on as their excuses. Then they offer some minor reduction to give the impression of joining forces with the great British public to bring costs down so we can weather the storm.

I assume the journo is making his notes, curious shorthand scribbles across the stereotypical notepad and I continue.

The end of season sales are ideal examples, the stock is technically useless, any money made is a bonus and the space is required for the next wave. I like end of season sales. I buy my daughters clothing months in advance, making best use of sales to prepare at lower costs. With twins nothing can be passed down to the next sibling, it really is twice the price.
The end of season sale is the norm, clearing out and making at least a scraping of profit and I am happy to take advantage of that, sacrificing only wardrobe space in my efforts to save.
Boots had a record January sale, the day the 70% sale kicked in shelves were stripped bare in a single day. I saw a woman sat on the floor, guarding 8 or 9 large shopping sacks crammed to the brim with reduced stock. Never before has Boots sold such a phenomenal amount in a single day in their well reputed sales. The staff were speechless. The recession brings out the hoarder in some and to best effect in some cases.

These are the genuine sales in my opinion, the ones which represent best value for money.

There is a prolonged silence. ‘ Could I send a photographer out to take pictures of you and your daughters please?’

I wonder for a moment, how will they illustrate me saving money? But I agree. An hour later a photographer is booked.
The next morning I have the twins dressed in outfits from a sale, looking cute and girly and I’m dressed in an hour casual but hopefully flattering and the photographer comes knocking.
Three hundred photographs later, of me with the my daughters on their discounted swing set in the garden, me with my discounted Tesco shopping walking home, then in the kitchen, me sat with the BView screen on my laptop and then the girls and I apparently looking at BView (but sneakily looking at CBeebies for maximum attention span of 3 year olds), the photographer puts away his lenses and leaves with a smile and a wave.

The next day I buy the newspaper, searching for what I hope will be a nice quote and a pleasant photograph. There’s a huge full page spread on money saving and the impact of BView and others, great lists and links to save money and at the bottom is an interview section with the details of the single chap and his daughter, his money saving tips and tricks and his total savings over the year, illustrated by a small photograph of a very serious looking man.  Squashed into the corner is a small paragraph about my girls and I and our own adventures in saving, but no pictures.

Still, through talking to the journo, I’ve heard myself give my opinion, further concreting it into my mind; not all savings are genuine. A voucher will save you money if you were going to buy the item anyway. Or it will lessen the load if you would like something but would only buy it with reductions.
Shop sensibly for genuine savings.

Tags: interview, press, saving, sunday mirror, vouchers
Posted in General, News, Savings | Comments Off

Bouncing into 1st place

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Following the slot as number 1 business on BView we had to know more about Atlantic Trampolines and Mark Plews was very helpful.

Atlantic Trampolines was set up in response to a gap in the market in 2005, there were others supplying trampolines but AT’s research came up trumps showing that others were also supplying garden furniture and spas and would change suppliers often.

So, a specialist company was just the ticket and the AT team travelled to China to find a supplier, eventually settling on Kogee, the second largest supplier in the world and in business since 1984.

Mark said:

“We found BView through a search engine and liked the layout of the site and also the benefits that it could bring to future customers to be able to see real customers views of the service and products we supply. We use most of the networking sites and these sites have given us extra exposure on Google.
The voucher idea is a great plus point on BView and having these email to all members of BView every two weeks makes this a very appealing feature and we hoped this would also gain a few extra sales during these times of hardship.”

Diane Leonard reviewed the company and said “Ordered 14ft trampoline, changed mind before it was despatched to 12ft . They were very helpful over phone and re-imbursed me the difference. Trampoline is very sturdy and has withstood the harsh winter and still looks as good as new. Would have no problem recommending this company.”

If the BView listing and the comments on their own website (www.atlantictrampolines.co.uk)  isn’t enough, you can check out Atlantic Trampolines on eBay with their 100% feedback and over 10,000 happy customers.

You might also find them near you at one of the county fairs during the summer season and what’s more sales are picking up in Europe, so Atlantic Trampolines might become more of a household name in the future.

So with a solid background like that, it’s no wonder Atlantic Trampolines have the No.1 slot for business on BView.

Posted in Business, News, offers | Comments Off

BView is now the 'answer' for Ask.com

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Ask.com are the UK’s second largest search engine and have a strong following of people who enjoy their editors answers for a wide range of questions. We’re extremely excited to announce that Ask.com’s editors have selected BView as their ‘answer’ for local questions.

Now both businesses and customers can benefit by finding local business listings from BView in their search results on Ask.com. So what do you want to find?

‘Florist in Sheffield’, we hear you ask. All you have to do is type in what you need with a town or postcode.

Select the snapshot to see what it looks like:

If you’re in the mood to browse you can explore the Ask.com results but if you’re just looking for options and could benefit from local advice, BView will present five of the closest matches.

On BView you’ll be able to access business information including a map, read what’s being said about the business, check credit scores and access discounts. All of which is conveniently available on one page!

Tags: answers, ask, ask.com, businesses, BView, local search, questions, search engine
Posted in Announcements, News | 1 Comment »

Global Sourcing Technologies- what's happening?

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Over the last week we have noticed members commenting on orders which have not arrived from Global Sourcing Technologies based in Wembley (HA9 7NG). So far they have been given a BView score of 0% across 7 reviews and have been voted ‘not recommended’ 18 times by the BView community.

You can find out more and gain some advice by reading the reviews and comments on the following page:

Global Sourcing Technologies, Wembley

Your reviews encourage companies to respond and we have witnessed issues being resolved because of your feedback on BView. If you have received poor service this Christmas, have your voice heard by searching for a company and leaving a review.

Too short on time to review? You can quickly vote for the company instead- look out for the buttons on the right hand side of the business profile.

Tags: BView, community, customer service, global sourcing technologies, london, wembley
Posted in Business, News | 1 Comment »

BView is one of The Guardian's top sites for 2009

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

We’re delighted that BView has been included in The Guardians list of 100 top sites for 2009.  We’re all very proud to have been included on such a great list, and will continue working hard to make BView the place to come for local knowledge, local advice and local savings.

If you’ve got any suggestions or feedback on how we can make BView better then please let me or Samina know.

Bring on 2009… we’ve got big things planned, and can’t wait.

Tags: guardian, top 100
Posted in Announcements, General, News | Comments Off

Another helping hand

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Since BView launched back in March our community has expanded faster than we could have imagined – and we’ve trying our hardest to focus on what matters most: our members.

To make sure that each and every one of you gets the attention you deserve I’m happy to introduce you all to Samina H – the newest addition to the BView team. Sam will be working alongside me to help keep all you BViewer’s up to speed. Please give her big welcome – I know she’s keen to get stuck in and help you all get the best out of BView.

I know Sam is really interested to hear from you all and to find out a bit more about what you think would make BView a better place – so get in touch and let her know.

Our developers are  just putting the finishing touches on to the latest BView features, and Sam will be telling you all more about that just as soon as we’ve ironed out the last few bugs (well, I hope they’re the last few anyway). I’m not allowed to tell you what the new features are yet, but I reckon you might just like them…

Laters.

Simon
(Samina says “hi” too)

Tags: BView, community, News, team
Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off

Release 5.0 New Features – Tags

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Tagging, as any up and coming graffiti artist knows, is the process of adding relevant slogans to a wall or in our case a business listing. We decided that tagging would be a great addition to BView and this Thursday it was unleashed.

Tags are always associated with a particular business and can be added either when you write a review, or separately when you edit the business. Kat and I have added a video below showing you how to add tags. A tag cloud will be shown for every business, giving you a quick summary of what people think, and also against a user showing you what tags they have added.

Additionally, when you search for a business using the “what” field, as well as relevant categories you will be shown all businesses tagged with your search phrase. For example, searching for “ice cream” will show not only all ice cream parlours, but also all businesses tagged with “ice cream”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxZr7_punpg]

Tags: bview has tags, tag, tagged, tagging, tags
Posted in Announcements, Features, News | 3 Comments »

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