BT Tradespace

BT Tradespace ceased to exist in November 2013. It was an online community created by BT Plc that gave small businesses and individual sellers an online presence.

Businesses looking to create a free or low-cost online presence now commonly use Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter. Startups has a number of articles on how to create a business profile on such sites, including:

• Facebook for business
• Pinterest as a marketing tool for your business
• How to use Twitter to generate buzz around your brand

The banks, RBS NatWest with BizCrowd and Barclays' Connector have also created online platforms for small and mid-sized businesses to boost marketing enquiries.

While BT Tradespace is no more, the service was free to join and allowed businesses to create and post content on the web and link to similar businesses.

Each BT Tradespace member's page included space for businesses to add blogs, photos, podcasts, contact information, maps, virtual business cards and Click-to-Call (which allowed phone calls over the web), and to join online communities.

BT Tradespace also had a partnership with online payment processing company PayPal, which allowed BT Tradespace users to buy and sell products and services directly with each other.

With the basic package you were able to:

• Build a profile, describe your company and upload up to five photos
• Advertise and sell up to five items on your Tradespace
• Share your thoughts and ideas and promote your products and services with unlimited blogging, two podcasts and two videos

BT Tradespace Contact was a more comprehensive version of the basic service. With BT Tradespace Contact, you had all the features and functions of the basic option and you could also:

• • Advertise and sell unlimited items on your Tradespace
  • Allow customers in UK and abroad to call you for free.

<liEnable customers to receive your business card via SMS text and email from anywhere in the world.

• Post unlimited photos, podcasts, videos.

The service cost around £15.00 (plus VAT) for a monthly subscription, but there were discounted six month and annual subscriptions also available.