Vouch for That MD, Catharine Anderson, tells us about what’s happening this Christmas!

When I started Vouch for That last year, it was to ease a pain that I had felt when buying Christmas presents. You know those people who you just don’t know what to get – whether that is because you just don’t know what they are into these days or because they live far away?

For those people in my family, I have always found gift vouchers a safe bet – but what annoyed me was that I couldn’t buy them online! Sure I could buy gift vouchers for chain restaurants or department stores, but I wanted it to be more personal than that. I wanted gift vouchers for their FAVOURITE local restaurant or that boutique beauty salon where they get their nails done. And as a busy working mother of two, I wanted to be able to do this quickly and securely online – not having to visit the individual businesses or give card details over the phone.

Fast forward another year and we are still supporting independent businesses but we have also launched a new service.

We are so proud to have been supported by agencies in Scotland who want to make our towns and villages strong again – get people to support local businesses and promote “shop local” wherever possible.

I am now on the Cross Party Group for Towns and Town Centres which meet at the Scottish Parliament quarterly to develop ideas and innovations to help Scotland’s Towns and Town Centres through the current economic climate to emerge stronger, smarter, cleaner, healthier and greener. I am heading to Edinburgh tomorrow for the next meeting and cannot wait to hear how the group are working together to achieve this goal.

So What is Vouch for That doing to help?

We enable independent businesses to sell gift vouchers online. This connects online shoppers with “bricks and mortar” businesses, allowing current or potential customers to gift their products or services.

But what we also do is create area-wide gift voucher schemes. So in the same way you would buy a shopping centre voucher that can be used in any of the shops located under that roof, onwww.vouchforthat.co.uk you can buy a gift voucher online that can be used in any of the independent businesses located in a town or village.

This opens up the gift voucher model to businesses that you might not traditionally think to gift, but you might want to use your gift voucher in if you had the choice e.g. alternative therapies, an opticians, a butcher’s shop or a gift shop.

What it also does, is highlight to people what amazing shops and services they have on their doorstep and encourages them to actually visit these shops to see what they can buy!

Our NEW website goes live soon!

Our new website will go live in just a few weeks, and will enable our customers to choose whether they want a beautiful printed gift voucher or an instant email voucher – so you can buy our gift vouchers at the very last minute! You can also add greetings cards to your order, choose a date in the future to send the gift voucher (to coincide with a birthday or anniversary perhaps) and also buy gift vouchers to send to multiple addresses – all in one transaction.

So keep an eye on our social media accounts or sign up for our newsletter (you’ll find this on the home page www.vouchforthat.co.uk) and we will be letting you know very soon what Towns and Villages you will be able to Vouch For this Christmas!