Small business has teamed up with sage to offer your business the opportunity to open your own pop-up shop in Edinburgh in the glittering St James Quarter. The deadline has been extended to October 15th. So submit your entries now!
Three award-winning small businesses will share the Edinburgh pop-up shop at the St James Quarter retail location, selling alongside John Lewis and luxury brands such as Space NK, Hotel Chocolat and L’Occitane.
It couldn’t be a better venue for your business in the run-up to Christmas — and entry is completely free.
Three lucky businesses will be sharing our Small Business x Sage pop-up shop starting Wednesday the 29thTh November to Saturday 2ndnd December.
This is an ideal way to test your product, find new customers, or get feedback on your service.
4 reasons to join in
Grow your brand
The winners will gain exposure by walking through the busy St James Quarter in the run-up to Christmas and receive helpful press coverage.
Present your company
Invite investors, colleagues or interested parties to introduce your company. The shop also has an events area where we host events during the pop-up.
Test your product or service in a road test
A unique opportunity to sell or demonstrate your product or service to potential customers at scale and collect valuable personal feedback from consumers.
Create leads for your business
Get a pipeline of high-intent leads for your business that you can follow up on beyond the store.
What you could win
Four day takeover of a pop-up shop in St James Quarter, Edinburgh
- Assistance with setup
- Video interview and editorial coverage after the event
- Budget of £500 for inventory, marketing and advertising
- Sage Accounting 6 Month Free Trial
- Advertising across Small business including email newsletters and social media posts
What previous winners say
Last June, Small business and Sage have teamed up to give three winning businesses the chance to open their own pop-up shop on busy Oxford Street in central London.
Vegan brownie company Cake Or Death, online bookstore LoveReading and baby gear rental company Baboodle were selected from dozens/hundreds of submissions to share the pop-up.
The reaction from the winners was extremely positive, particularly in terms of the platform they gave their brands.
Deborah Maclaren from LoveReading said: “The support we have received from Sage and Small Business has been brilliant. It was just a seamless, brilliant experience.”
Baboodle’s Katie Hanton-Parr added: “All the support around has been great too — all the workshops, it’s a bit groundbreaking. “You wouldn’t realize how important it was… it’s a trickle-down effect.”
How to enter our Sage Pop-up Shop competition
Simply fill out the online entry form for the competition here.
The deadline for participation is October 15, 2023 at midnight.
The winner will be announced on Monday, October 23rd.
The winning businesses will occupy the premises from Tuesday 28 November to Saturday 2 December (with the store open for trading Wednesday to Saturday).
The competition is open to all UK businesses that have been operating for less than five years (up to and including 28 November 2023) and is completely free to enter.
Who are our Sage Pop-up Shop judges?
Oliver Clark
Global Vice President of Integrated Campaigns for Sage
Oliver Clarke joined Sage in January 2022 as global vice president of integrated campaigns. He is responsible for driving the strategy and creativity of all Sage campaigns globally, with the aim of making Sage an iconic brand in its category. Olly has extensive experience in marketing and advertising. He created transformational and award-winning campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands, working with companies such as Unilever, ABInBev and Mars.
Katie Cross
Founder and director of Cake or Death
Katie Cross had a career in fundraising and development for various charities before quitting in January 2019 to pursue her dream of becoming a business owner. Cake or death started in early 2019 as a wholesale vegan cake company. After the incredible response to Cake or Death’s Brownies at a vegan market in London, Katie focused her energy on the secret recipe and developed several new flavors. When the pandemic hit, Katie pivoted her business from wholesale to delivering ingenious Cake or Death brownie boxes to consumers in the mailbox. The bakery moved from East London to Exeter in the summer of 2021, where it now has a storefront and continues to ship baked goods across the country.
Deborah Maclaren
Managing Director of LoveReading
Deborah Maclaren is Managing Director of LoveReading And LoveReading4Kids and she has been steering the ship since 2018. Combining her media background, passion for books, love for literacy, marketing knowledge and business acumen, her involvement in the LoveReading portfolio has taken the LoveReading brand into a new world of brilliant book content and the Opening an online bookstore with a social purpose. LoveReading was one of the winners of the inaugural Sage x Small Business competition in June, which gave them their first physical presence as a bookstore.
Kirsty Waller
Vice President of UKI Performance Marketing at Sage
Kirsty Waller is responsible for gaining insight and understanding into the ever-changing SME business environment and supporting over one million Sage UK customers to scale and grow their business.
