trade directories

Last century, there was a thing called the Shoe Trades Directory in the UK, published by a footwear manufacturer's magazine using research by the people who sold ad-space on its pages. I photocopied the last edition at City Business Library and ran out of change before doing the index, so if anyone has the index to the Shoe Trades Directory of about 1990, I would be interested to know.

Internet killed the niche-market trade directories and replaced them with its own versions - the enthusiast link-list; the automated directory of free information that hopes for an advert, the blog, and the obscure document that you dredge-up from years ago.

None of these does the same job of saying whether X shoes of Y town makes mens, ladies, or childrens' sizes using Z or other technique in batches of 1, 12, 36-72, 100+, or 1 container-full, at low-end, middling, or top-end prices: contact Mr X for more details or, better, fax 00000000000000, and promised to cover nearly all the shoemakers in the UK - not just the ones who pay to be in a trade association or have a PR agent.

Well I am very chuffed to get a polite reply from government via an MP who was busy on other things at the time, but still found someone to concentrate on my email and forward it.

(Unfortunately there is another part of government funding promotion of important goods and even an M&S factory in China - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69193/pb13206-clothing-action-plan-100216.pdf)

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Marie-Claire Uhart
Director
Central Policy

1st Floor, 1C/01
100 Parliament Street
London SW1A 2BQ

Zac Goldsmith MP

zac at zacgoldsmith com

Tel: 03000 586675

Email: marie-claire uhart at hmrc gsi gov uk

Date: 05 May 2016

Dear Mr Goldsmith

Thank you for your email of 4 April 2016 about your constituent, Mr John Robertson of 2
Avenue Gardens, London, SW14 8BP. I am replying on behalf of the Chief Executive.

Mr Robertson raises an important point. To address this issue, as part of the Government’s
agenda on business, HMRC and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) are
looking at various business register options.

As Mr Robertson recognises HMRC operates under a duty of confidentiality which applies to
all information the department holds. This legal duty can be dis-applied in certain
circumstances, for example where a person consents to disclosure when the information is
for the purpose of our functions; or where a statutory enactment is in place. In developing
business register options with BIS, we are looking at potential benefits while ensuring that
the public can continue to be confident that we look after their data appropriately. Where
legislation is needed to be able to use HMRC information as part of a register it will be
included as part the overall package.

I hope this helps you to reply to Mr Robertson

Yours sincerely


Marie-Claire Uhart

Director, Central Policy

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... Back to the blog post and away from quoted letters ....

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On a different subject I've been looking for somewhere to list all the sties that re-hash companies house data, and sometimes add just a teaspoon-full more without charging. And then close, like bizzy, or start charging, liked Duedil. I've taken the example of Nonleather Distribution Ltd on each site, if available. This company was registered 16 days ago and changed its name about two weeks ago. If it isn't on the site, I don't link to it.


http://www.bizdb.co.uk - hopes to cross-link to trademark ownership, directors, sic code search, and company domain ownership according to the front page of the site

http://bizzy.co.uk/404/  closed - used to offer a free minimal credit reference - see checkbusiness below

https://www.check-business.co.uk - Nonleather Distribution Ltd - adds a free star rating from Equifax credit rating. Links to the owner, Funding Options, a credit broker

http://www.cdrex.com - Nonleather Distribution Ltd - search by keyword in the name - first to allow searching by classification - adds co-ordinates and arial view - updates prompted by a company number search

http://companiesintheuk.co.uk - Nonleather Distribution Ltd -
 - search by classification - search by postcode - prompt an update - add links for your own co

http://www.companycheck.co.uk - Nonleather Distribution Ltd

http://www.companysearchmadesimple.com - Nonleather Distribution Ltd - no added free services - classifications don't show

http://www.creditgate.com - Nonleather Distribution Ltd - no extra services over companies house- hard sales of paid-for services that are often free at Companies House

http://www.datalog.co.uk - I can't open their site but a cached version says it covers "British, American, Canadian and Irish companies", with US companies from "Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, NY, Virginia, Rhode Island, Michigan, Oregan, Washington and Wyoming."

http://do-business.net/sbc/Company/Search based on Dunn and Bradstreet's database rather than Companies House, and so able to cover some sole traders who can apply for a DUNS number. No information given free except a name and address. Free monitoring of a few companies is available.

http://www.duedil.co.uk - Nonleather Distribution Ltd - now charge for previously free services



http://www.opencorporates.com - covers so many juristictions that there are too many to list, starting with Abhu Dhabi. Cross-references to London Gazette and other similar

Do e-commerce sites have to state the country of origin? - North American and European answer

http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-it-compulsory-for-clothing-e-commerce-websites-to-specify-on-each-product-page-where-the-clothes-were-produced

The link has a couple of answers for two different trading blocks, North America and Europe.

The American answer says there is a law forcing people to state the country of origin, but that it isn't enforced.

The European answer states that EU makers are too-much lobbied or too feckless to allow their voters such information. The European Union finds it impossible to do something that's possible in America. However things might be changing with a 2014 EU directive, opposed by German and UK delegates, to make force EU manufacturers to label their EU origins.

Neither answer states where to look-up the law or lack of law, but both look pretty convincing and one has links to parliamentary debates on the subject

That's it.

Here are some related blog posts and afterthoughts.

• Veganline.com is a shoe shop that tries to sell UK-made products and label by country of origin.
  Make It British has a couple of posts about labelling. I hope to get a bit of search ranking by publishing this related stuff.
• https://veg-buildlog.blogspot.com/2015/10/bad-economics-teaching.html is a post about how bad econmics teaching works. Teachers get lecture notes and such from the McGraw Hill Publishing Company, teach from the textbook, and avoid facts.
• Pantstopoverty.org.uk is a salvedged web site, reclaimed in order to write why the great Pants to Poverty craze did not take-off in proportion to costs as hoped. A review of social enterprise examples, one or two per country for a European Parliament committee, says that Pants "only" sold £250,000-worth in a good year. Maybe the problem was that Pants to Poverty were wrong about whether they were helping. 
• http://makeitbritish.co.uk/uk-manufacturing-2/a-step-forward-for-made-in-britain-labelling/
• http://makeitbritish.co.uk/made_in_britain/made-britain-labels-become-compulsory/
  Here is a related subject: how to tell people that your product is made in the UK. A tricky point because you have already spent money on the income tax and national insurance of people who make the product, their high rent, and the costs of safety laws or general civic stuff that don't apply in China or Rana Plaza so there is no money left-over for anything else, like explaining sales points.
• Vistaprint used to offer more cashback through cashback web sites than they charged in their postage-only offer on 250 template cards with a lie on the back - a note that business cards are free when they're not. They've also cancelled their union jack template from their cheapest templates, so the days of making money by ordering swing tags are over unfortunately.
• Moorplan sell some cheap made-in cards, one country only.
  Walk-in to a shop to buy 100 at 3-4p per card.
  Order 1 box @ 1000 online and pay delivery but a lower rate per card.
  Order 2 box @ 2000 online to get 1.6p per card with free delivery.
  
  Moorplan also sell woven name tapes rather like over-size cashe's school name tapes in black or white to say "made in england". I plan to do a post on product labelling some time and so shall keep the other options secret to build-up anticipation. 

If you print your own cards in colour and want a first idea for a design, there's a free one commissioned by a firm called Stoves.co.uk available to anyone who makes something in Britain, as enforceable by trading standards agencies. It is an open source design. They no longer promote the scheme and have picked a niftier logo for a new scheme that you have to subscribe to. Neither logo suggests why anybody should care what country something is made-in, and both are brash about origin in a way that's out of fashion everywhere but sports grounds, but hey.

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Blog on a single page from Veganline.com the vegan shoe shop