Some of our friends

When the idea of Small Market was born we planned to create a website that would allow my friends (and myself!) to sell handmade creations on a platform that was designed for them, with minimal fees and maximum exposure using our expertise in web development to create the best site that we could.

It's since grown up to be a fully fledged marketplace selling the makes of many talented UK makers, but the fundamentals of that original ambition are still true. We've been able to use our skills to create what we believe to be a great platform, with great flexibility for sellers, and a smooth buying process for customers, whilst putting small businesses at the heart of everything we do. Being a small business with a custom built system also means that we can change it to flex with the changing needs of our sellers and buyers to make sure that we stay that way.

Some of our friends have helped us to make Small Market the success that it is, and we're so grateful to these people for their continued support, but also pleased to call them our sellers!

Supermeeps

Starting with one of our talented illustrators, and I can say that because I trained at university alongside her. Leilani is one half of Supermeeps, and technically doesn't qualify for a shop on Small Market as she's now living in Dubai, but that's what over a decade of friendship will get you! She was instrumental in the development of our sellers portal and helped us throughout the testing phases, so we're really pleased to be able to welcome the Supermeeps team to a finalised Small Market site.

Shelley Wood Studio

From the early conception of the marketplace Shelley listened to the trials and tribulations whilst sitting next to me in the day job! Her ceramics are sublime, but also have a special place in my heart as she ran a ceramics workshop for my hen do, which was so much fun. The pandemic has made everything tricky, but seeing the updates from Shell's studio have been a genuine highlight, and of course having her sign up to sell on the site has been a huge plus in our lockdown.

Betty Writes

With her amazing typographic skills Beth is the talented maker at the helm of Betty Writes. She's a friend and colleague, and a talented designer with a love of words. If you're from Manchester you may well have seen her work on one of the many windows she's illustrated, and now she brings those perfectly formed words to her makes on Small Market. Her help with social media has been invaluable and having her choose to be a part of our marketplace was a lovely endorsement!

It's been a real delight for Chris and I to watch Small Market grow and to welcome the people that helped shape the original ideas, come back and join us as sellers as it became a reality. We've a lot to thank a lot of people for now that we're up and running, but more than that. We have the talented makers that have surrounded us along the way to thank for shaping and making Small Market a reality, because in designing it for us we've ensured that it now works for the makers that we have onboard.

And that's the real story, because we're now making new friends within the maker community, and the people that sign up to sell with us really mean a lot to us, so we celebrate their successes in the way we do our old friends. Small Market is starting to feel like a real community of makers that aim to support each other. And that's really what it's all about.