BOXBY IN THE NEWS & MEDIA

 

“Err, excuse me, Come Back to Ayrshire”, whisper South Ayrshire Council. - 6th February 2009

You would think that if you had the budgets and spending power of South Ayrshire council, that if you commissioned a website, you would be seeing that website sitting at the number 1 positions on Google.

Well, not so.

South Ayrshire Council commissioned a website appealing to visitors and ex-residents to “come back to Ayrshire” www.comebacktoayrshire.com . However the website has been built in such a way that it fails to rank on google for even the most obvious of search terms.

Local businesswoman Sandra Patterson, who runs a website call Boxby (www.boxby.co.uk) says “it’s exceedingly frustrating to see council funds being wasted in this way, what is the point of building a website that no-one can find?”

“ One of the key tasks for us in managing our business is ensuring that our website is working in the best way possible for us, and that means being seen in Google for the search terms that real people actually use. As a small business we have had to do most of this work ourselves, and it’s paid dividends as we now rank on the first page for very competitive search terms such as “delivery companies”. It is therefore very frustrating to see South Ayrshire Council wasting money by commissioning websites that can not rank, because the developers have ignored basic search engine optimisation techniques, and the person commissioning the website doesn’t have any basic website knowledge”

Sandra further states that this is particularly frustrating in light of the Council’s recent decision to close rather than maintain Girvan Swimming pool. “The council seem to be sacrificing the needs of the local communities in order to attract visitors, during a recession when no-one is really spending money. If the council’s website was working properly it may stand a chance of attracting a few visitors into the area, who could spend some money and help the local tourism business, however, spending all this money on a website that the visitors will never find, is a total waste of money”.

 

 

Boxby is doing it for Free!  -  15th December 2008

Local company Boxby are doing all they can to help businesses get the best prices for their deliveries during these difficult trading times. 

The UK Courier industry is facing one of its toughest times for a long time.  Despite the drop in the price of fuel over recent months, the courier industry is still facing increasing costs, increased congestion charges, rising bridge tolls, increasing insurance and falling van values all hit hard.  And this comes at a time that the volume of deliveries is also falling, and the prices that customers can afford to pay for deliveries is falling too.

The last few months have seen the impact on the international parcel carriers, with City link on their way to £40m of losses for this year, DHL closing down all internal US delivery services, and Amtrak going into receivership at the end of the Summer.

So, it’s even tougher for the small courier companies who need to fight tooth & nail to win each individual job.  One company, Boxby, is trying hard to help both customers and couriers through the recession.

Boxby is a unique courier finding website, offering parcel services, and also an easy way for customers to put their delivery job out to hundreds of registered couriers.  In the past Boxby has charged a small fee, but as from today all of boxby’s services will be free.

This means:

• Free registration for customers
• Free registration for couriers
• No job fees charged to customers
• No job fees charged to couriers
• And No annual subscription fees for customers or couriers.

This makes Boxby a uniquely free courier finding website.  At present, we know of no other courier or delivery website that offers a fee free service to both customers and couriers.

“The delivery market is a particularly tough one at the moment”, says Alistair Patterson, Boxby Director.  “Both the customers and suppliers are trading in a very tight situation, the customers are looking to reduce the delivery costs to a minimum in order to secure the sales, and the couriers are facing continually rising costs”.

“In order to help both our customers, and our many registered independent courier companies, we have decided that Boxby will no longer charge any fees to either the customers or the couriers, helping the couriers win extra jobs, and the customers save even more than they already do by using boxby.  We will be introducing advertising to fund the website, and with our current numbers of users, and rapidly growing numbers of visitors, Boxby is an attractive proposition for advertisers.  It’s a challenging time to be trading, which is why we listen carefully to our couriers and customers, and we think that these changes are really going to push Boxby on to become the top site for people looking for deliveries.”

 

 

Editors Notes;

Boxby is the trading name of Boxby Ltd, at www.boxby.co.uk, and the company was established at the beginning of 2007.

Boxby is a one stop delivery solution website, providing next day parcel services and a quotation facility for large, heavy, urgent and fragile items that cannot be sent by couriers.  Boxby has hundreds of registered independent courier companies, and regularly achieves savings for customers of up to 80% of normal courier rates.

Please contact Sandra Patterson at sandra@boxby.co.uk for any further information.

 

 

 

Boxby Shines at the Startup Stars Awards - May 2008

 

Boxby Winners at SIE 2008  -  March 2008

 

A new and innovative company has just scooped the Runners Up prize in the prestigious Scottish Institute of Enterprise Business Plan Competition, winning a marvelous £9,000 prize of start up capital and professional services.

Sandra & Alistair Patterson’s business plan is for their new business, Boxby, which is a complete delivery solution website, organizing deliveries for everything from Parcels to Sofas, around the UK, and beyond.

“The idea for Boxby came out of an existing business we had, we were delivering antique furniture for customers, and one day we realized that there were hundreds of courier & delivery companies doing exactly the same thing, all trying to find customers across the whole country, and many driving around with half empty vans.” said Sandra Patterson

“Boxby is about helping those Couriers and Delivery companies to find the extra jobs to keep their vans full.  They way this is done on our website means that the customer gets the best price possible, and also it gives them a choice about which courier or delivery company they use.”

The business plan competition lasted several months, and the final stage involved a business pitch “dragons den” style to a panel of judges.  “This was the most nerve racking part of the competition,” said Alistair, “but we had to just bury our nerves and get on with it.  It was a really challenging experience. “

The Judges panel thought that the talk was excellent and described a business with proven and growing potential.  This team was the winner in this undergraduate stream and came second overall in a very tight competition

“The competition was a very good thing for us to do”, says Sandra, “as although Boxby is trading and growing fast, SIE provided advisors and feedback that we have found invaluable”.

SIE run the Business Plan competition annually, and previous winners of the competition include This is Red Button, who went on to win other international awards, as well as successfully securing funding from BBC Dragons Den.

 

Notes to Editors

• Boxby lets customers get delivery quotes from up to 700 courier companies via one online form.
• Boxby’s website can be viewed at www.boxby.co.uk
• For further information contact Sandra Patterson at Sandra@boxby.co.uk or 01465 715444
• The Scottish Institute for Enterprise’s annual business plan competition is sponsored by Enterprise Rent a Car, who put up a prize fund of £50,000.
• The competition is open to all undergraduates, and post graduates of Scottish Universities, and involves a local competition at each of the universities, three entrants from each institution are then put forward to the national competition.