Wrap It Up! Audi A1 Wrap Competition

After much debate and many test drives, we opted for the Audi A1 as our company car of choice, it looks great, drives really well, has brilliant build quality and is available with a 7 speed DSG gearbox which is smoooooth! It's also really fun to drive!

The A1 will be arriving shortly and since we are using it as a promo car too, we decided to launch a nation wide design competition revolving around the creation of an awesome looking wrap for the car to make it stand out from the crowd!

The comp was only launched a week ago and so far we have had loads of people requesting the "Wrap Pack" to get started on their ideas for the A1. The competition has grown from a small campaign to boosting across the country and getting involved with Gumball 3000 to launch the car at their 13th annual rally this year in central London which then escalated to joining forces with Audi UK on a joint press release when it all concludes, so we are really happy with the way it's worked out so far!

We are now looking forward to seeing all of the wrap submissions and getting the winner some nation wide coverage by unveiling the car at this years Gumball and handing them a £250 cheque!

Stay posted for the results, you can find all the updates on the competition on our facebook page www.facebook.com/ecoforecourt and if you fancy entering please email wrapcomp@gmail.com and we'll send you the Wrap Pack too! You have until 25th April to submit your designs so don't hang around!

Experimental Business

It's been a while since we have seen a great viral video, let alone one that revolves around interesting business practices, so when we saw KLM's 'Personal Space' video it had to be shared on the blog. If nothing else it's hilarious to watch people react to invasions of space that 'belongs' to them. But this is also a brilliant example of a company thinking outside the box and taking their customer service one step further. By allowing flyers to book the seat next to them on the plane, KLM's customers can maximise their personal space and look forward to a more comfortable flight. Check it out...

In The Press

Since the launch of our first press release, exposure has been pretty good and EcoForecourt has been featured in various places around the web and in print. We have had some great coverage from the likes of SpringWise and TheNextWeb and had some regional papers picked up on us, so we'd just like to say thanks!

MOO You Gonna Call!?

We believe it's important to echo your brands feel, image and purpose through every aspect of the company and in whatever you do.

Take our sofa for example, it may appear completely crazy, but that's the idea! It's already acted as a great talking point, it's been shared on websites and even a press photographer who recently came to the EF HQ took a photo with members of the team on it! It reflects our brands colours and our funky, light hearted approach to business, people love sitting on it too!

Business cards then, however small they may seem, are certainly no exception to this rule!

Due to the nature of EcoForecourt we needed to find someone with a funky approach to things but more importantly a company with an eco edge - in this case - paper with great green credentials.

After searching around we hooked up with than the guys at Moo.com. We got fixed up with some "Green Stock" which is 100% recycled and recyclable, manufactured using wind power and free from harmful chemicals. Pretty fitting really : )

Here are a couple of samples from the front of some of our teams cards...

The Sign Has Arrived!

We have been in the new Eco Forecourt office now for a number of months and while we have been getting on with work really well, there are still a few things missing from the place to make it feel complete. Namely, Grass on the floor, a couple of really cool chairs and a great big Eco Forecourt logo on the wall! Well, the logo has just arrived! And we would like to share it with you because we are as excited as kids on Christmas day here! Check it out...

Whats cool about these signs is that they peel off the wall no problem and stick to pretty much any flat surface, so if we are going to a show or want to use it for promotion else where, we just whip it off the wall and stick up anywhere we go! Pretty cool right?

Updates to follow on the grass and chairs in the near future, thats going to be a big job!

We're On Springwise!

Before setting up and launching EcoForecourt, we used to read Springwise.com for inspiration and general updates on all the cool stuff happening out there in the world of start up businesses, entrepreneurs and innovative ideas, and now we are super happy to see our very own idea, (Eco Forecourt) appear on the very same site. Please feel free to take a look at their coverage of the site. Thanks to everyone at Springwise for noticing what we're doing, we look forward to updating you on our progress as we go!

Christmas Santa Fun Run

On Saturday 4th December a few of us from EcoForecourt are taking part in a Santa Fun Run to help our good friends at the KeepSmilin.co.uk. charity. The run takes place in a park in Manchester and how fun it is going to be we aren't sure as the snow here is heavy to say the least! But then I guess 70+ people running through the snow dressed as Santa can only be fun right!? So far we have only raised a little bit of money but every little helps! We will put up some pictures of us donning our Santa outfits after the run and let you all know how we got on : ) wish us luck!

BIG Decision - Seriously Eco

Today we made a pretty big decision at EcoForecourt. Until today we capped the C02 of our cars at a pretty respectful 155g/km C02, by large this is not bad going for most vehicles. However, we are ECO Forecourt and so we want to do exactly as our name suggests and bring you low carbon, green cars ONLY.

As a result this afternoon we have committed to capping our cars C02 at a highly respectful 130g/km C02.

What's the big deal you say? Well to give you an idea of why this is such a dramatic change for us, yesterday we had around 1000 cars on the site, today due to the re-capping our stock count has taken a significant hit and we are back down to around 150 cars! Almost like day 1.

It was a really hard decision for us but in the long run we believe this to be the best choice for our visitors. You don't expect to walk into an organic store and find your experience tainted by picking up battery produce, so why should you expect to visit our Eco car website and have your search results contaminated by the thought that some of our stock might not quite be as eco as you think.

We want to commit to eco in as big-a-way as possible and by making this drastic change we can be 100% confident in our message to our customers and guarantee that every car on EcoForecourt.com is 100% Eco with regards to the government criteria.

So, here are the benefits:

As all the cars on EcoForecourt are 130g/km C02 or under, we GUARANTEE that you will not pay a penny more than £90 for your road tax, with the majority of the cars listed with us being either £30, £20 or FREE. Pretty cool we think!

The cars on the site will fit into emissions bands A,B,C & D - those that are in band A have FREE road tax, free parking benefits where applicable and FREE congestion charge in London and other congestion areas too (do make sure that is assigned to your numberplate by the DVLA)

Running costs are typically substantially less with our cars from all sorts of areas indicated below:

• Fuel
• Insurance
• Road Tax
• Maintenance
• Free Parking (where applicable)
• CC Exempt (where applicable)
• Zero Emissions on many models.

Of course not only will eco cars be saving your wallet but they are also helping the environment too. Lowering our carbon footprint is the end goal and by looking for cars on Eco Forecourt now you can be 100% confident you are going green regardless of what you end up finding on our website.

Thank you so much for visiting us and we are really looking forward to the future of motoring with you.

James Walker

Founder

EcoForecourt.com

We are integrating! Eco Forecourt Links With Green-Car-Guide

Our first month out of beta and we are really happy to announce that we are forming a partnership with our friends over at www.Green-Car-Guide.com. By placing our Eco Forecourt search box on their homepage, green car fans from around the country, and indeed the world will be able to search directly through our stock at Eco Forecourt while still reading the recommendations and reviews of the Green Car Guide. Until recently there hasn't been a hub where green cars are collected in one easy place and we are delighted to be able to team up with such an enthusiastic team and help people identify what exactly is an eco car and point them in the right direction to getting in one! The Green Car Guide has been established since 2006 and has been writing about the latest industry news and reviews ever since and have become the go-to place for any and all info concerning the future of motoring and advice on which eco car could be for you. They also offer a fantastic Free Green Car Guide download indicating the very best glow carbon, eco cars in each category. The integration of the two sites should be complete by next week upon which we will let you know how it's going!

Updates & Improvements

It's been a very busy few weeks recently, the site has come out of beta stage and is ready for using! The first eco cars we have on the site so far have come from B.S.Marson & sons Fiat dealership in Keele, Staffordshire. Fiat dealerships are great to get on board because Fiats cars are already ahead of the game in terms of low carbon vehicles. The Fiat 500 is a fantastic little run around and we have loads of these on the site already! The biggie however is our FREE LISTING offer - to help get the site populated with cars for the first few weeks we are offering everyone FREE listings on the site for as many cars as they like - got something to sell? Get it on here! We have also made some upgrades to the Eco Search slider to help you identify what it is exactly you are searching for when considering how eco friendly a car you are looking for. After putting the site out on Facebook we also got some great feedback from people making suggestions on how to improve the site. Overall the vibe was great from everyone who used it and most of the suggestions have been applied to the site, such as putting pictures next to the cars in "Choosing The Right Car For You..." check it out here http://www.ecoforecourt.com/buying-a-car/ Ongoing we are now looking to get the site cram packed with lots of eco cars for everyone to browse around, it's a harder process than we thought, getting garages to listen and appreciate this massively expanding trend but we are already making progress. I look forward to giving you our next update! Go well.