In 2013, we founded GenR8 in Ipswich, a first-of-its-kind membership card to help local businesses fight back against national chains, and to help consumers save money whilst shopping local. We spent months meeting with owners and managers of some of Suffolk’s best business to spread the word about the GenR8 scheme and get them on board. By Christmas 2013, GenR8 had grown to offer exclusive deals
and discounts at over 30 Ipswich businesses, and today we have more than 75 local businesses signed up! GenR8 was founded on the strong belief that buying local is invariably better. Successful local businesses bring prosperity, choice and liveliness to town centres that have become whitewashed with the same major chains you see in almost every British town. We wanted to create a scheme that rewarded people financially for supporting local business more regularly. GenR8 is completely free for our participating businesses – they pay neither a fixed fee nor commission to advertise their deals on our site. Keeping it free means they can afford to offer better deals and larger discounts to GenR8 members, without having to spend heavily on expensive (and often ineffective) advertising. The last thing our local businesses need is more cost, after all. To keep the scheme growing, our work is funded through small membership fees – just £1.25 a month, to be precise. That’s roughly the same as half a coffee, and just shy of half a pint. Not a lot to gain access to over 75 deals that will save you money as many times as you wish to redeem them, is it? In fact, of the 75 deals we offer, for around 40% of them you would earn back your annual GenR8 membership fee if you used your card just once in the whole year!
