Do you take card payments?
Save money through our Arran business tender
Lower fees via our group tender
Better service from suppliers
Keep more money in your pocket
Completely transparent (& minimal) costs
We’re setting up something completely different by inviting all Arran businesses together to join a group tender to create significantly better buying power.
Interested in finding out more?
Hi, I’m Shona Motherwell
I am setting up a new business, The Independent Buying Group, to help small and medium-sized companies find the suppliers they need to support their business's growth and success - i.e., suppliers who deliver on their promises, on time, and at a fair price.
I’ve worked in procurement for 25+ years and have seen the benefits of having the right supplier, who can do what you need. I’ve also seen it all go wrong!
I am currently working for SSE and we’re fortunate to have a team of people who source suppliers, run tenders and then help manage suppliers, ensuring that promises made by suppliers are delivered once we’ve signed a contact.
As part of such a large business, we are fortunate to have large buying power, so we get better rates from suppliers.
I have been investigating an idea for a new business to support small and medium businesses with a way to improve their buying power on common services. This would allow companies to access better rates due to our group buying power.
A few months ago I was chatting about the idea with our local garage owner. He said he was having loads of problems with his card payment provider, and they wanted him to sign up to a new four year contract.
His current contract meant he was paying £18,000 a year in transaction fees and he wanted to look for some other options.
Too busy to deal with it he asked if I could help.
When I spoke to other suppliers, posing as a broker, they all offered me a lifetime commission on the contract of between 10% and 30%. So based on his business, I could make between £1800 - £5000 per year.
The supplier who offered the worst rates for the garage owner was the one who would give me the best commission. Then one supplier said that if my commission didn’t work out enough for me, they could always increase the garage owner’s bill and give me more commission.
This is when I realised the whole industry was broken.
If I was acting as a broker, I could have said to my customer, “great news, I’ve cut your charges to £15k, I’ve saved you £3k” but in the background, I’d be getting a big fat cheque. Every single year. Just as the broker who had sold him that machine 15 years ago will have recieved, who he’d never seen again since he plugged in the machine.
Thankfully, I’m not interested in becoming a broker - I want to do something different. I want to get the best possible deal for our businesses, putting you first - for a change.
As the garage owner didn’t want to change supplier, without much negotiation, I managed to save him 65%* - with his current provider!
They had been charging him these fees for 15 years, and wanted to lock him in for another 4!
So, thinking about what we could do in the futuer, I went back to the suppliers to find out what we could do differently. What would they offer if I brought them 50, 100, 200, or more suppliers?
It was all great news:
Lower transaction fees
Better service, for example, a dedicated account manager, accessible by their mobile number - no more call centres.
SO, I want to find out what’s possible with these suppliers & run an experiment in group buying to see how much money we could save smaller businesses if we bring them together in a larger group.
* don’t get too excited, his was a really bad contract, but we should still save you money on your current deal.
Frequenly Asked Questions
What are we trying to do?
I want to bring a group of businesses together to see what benefit we can get by creating a group tender event.
This means that we will gather up details of all businesses and ask suppliers to give us a price for the volume as a group.
You would not be committing to change anything until we see the different options and pricing from suppliers.
What is the cost to take part?
I know that’s the big question.
I want to use this experiment as a bit of publicity for my business and I think we could make a huge story out of this, promoting Arran in the national and local press.
All I’m planning on charging is a small admin fee of £100 for the smallest business up to £500 for the largest business IF you decide to change suppliers due to this tender, BUT you won’t pay any commission on your card processing account, ever, which at the moment could be 10-30% of all the fees you pay.
We can work out your fees once we see details of your contract, but I can assure you that you’ll save money.
What is the plan?
If you’re interested in finding out more, you can add your details below and I’m also hosting a weekly call you can join to ask any questions. I will also come over to Arran for a few information sessions in mid-November for chatting in person.
After that, we need to collect some information on your current charges & your business.
The aim is to pull together a tender with everyone’s information during the next few months and have new prices for you by February/March.
I’m interested but I’ve just signed a new contract.
Don’t worry, everyone’s contracts will have different end dates, and could run across the next 4 years, depending on how long you’ve signed up for.
Suppliers are used to looking at a range of contract end dates so please still apply.
Your spend will help bulk up the overall value of the group tender. We need every business to sign up if possible.
Why Arran?
Your might be wondering why I’m doing this with businesses based in Arran.
It’s simple really.
I am looking for a mixed range and size of businesses to come together in this tender. Arran has a great mix of sizes, but it’s also a defined community.
This means we can get great publicity at the end of the tender as the press will be interested in a story of a community working together.
More importantly, I love Arran. We come over regularly on holiday with my family, but I also lived here when I was in primary school. My Dad worked for the Bank of Scotland and we were fortunate to move here during the late 70’s, early 80’s.
I know what it’s been like during the last number of years with the ferries, but only from the outside. I thought that if I could help some people in a place, it seemed like a perfect idea to me.
Every penny I save would go to people on the island, giving you real money back into your business.
I hope you’ll join and see what we can do together.
If you’re interested in finding out more, add your details here and I’ll be in touch with some dates when I’ll come over to the island and share more.