General News

We were proud to recently present a donation of £3,301.94 to the ADD-vance ADHD and Autism Trust, a local charity that supports families across the whole of Hertfordshire.

If your organisation completed ESOS Phase 3, you have until the 5th March 2025 to submit an Action Plan. If you fail to submit a plan you risk being publicly listed for not taking action. The Environment Agency has also implied that missing the deadline may lead to enforcement notices and financial penalties.

We are pleased to announce our official partnership as a Silver Supplier Member of the National Body Repair Association (NBRA).

We’re proud to celebrate our customers who have been recognised at awards shows this year for their impressive sustainability achievements. 

This week Purchase Direct was honoured to sponsor the Bob Linwood Memorial Trophy at the London Stadium in support of DEBRA UK.  

At Purchase Direct we recognise the importance of giving our employees the opportunity to engage in meaningful activities outside of their usual roles.

With environmental sustainability now a top priority, you have a unique opportunity to lead the charge in adopting green practices across your business with our Driving Net Zero programme.

The rising use of EV chargers on dealer premises has significantly driven up energy costs, now representing approximately up to 10-15% of total energy expenditure for businesses in the motor trade.

Another ‘Charity Day’ at Purchase Direct has raised £2,495 for Dementia UK. Account Manager Nicole Minides nominated Dementia UK for our latest charity event, which involved a fun-packed fundraising day in the office.

We are pleased to announce that Purchase Direct is now an assured supplier, listed within the Better Purchasing Framework (BPf) for the NHS.  

We are delighted to announce that Investors in People has awarded Purchase Direct with the ‘We invest in people’ accreditation for the next three years, retaining the standard that has been held consistently since first awarded in 2006.

The costs to process card payments is one of the biggest overheads for bodyshops. We all know that Visa and Mastercard charge the earth for processing card payments and for many bodyshops, these payments aren’t always secure or PCI compliant.

Purchase Direct is pleased to announce that the organisation has achieved carbon neutrality in accordance with PAS 2060 for the second year running.

We are committed to continuously enhancing our services to deliver unmatched cost savings and improved service levels – whilst exploring innovative products and solutions that prioritise sustainability without compromising quality or performance.

The Environment Agency has included some significant updates for the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) in their latest newsletter.

We are committed to constantly evolve our procurement services to deliver increased cost savings and improved service levels, and we are pleased to share with you that we have launched a new Waste Tyre Collection and Disposal Service through our sister company, Outsourced Waste Ltd.

Solar power generation is nothing new, but with the rising rates of energy and reductions in solar panel costs, many businesses are taking a fresh look at solar power to reduce the impact of energy costs on their business.

Since 2017 Purchase Direct has committed to make a fixed charitable donation each month to Save the Children, which this month has reached the grand total of £120,000. 

Last Summer, the Government announced changes to ESOS (the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme) in its response to the ESOS consultation which had been conducted.

We were delighted to recently donate £3163 to Welwyn Hatfield Women’s Refuge & Support Service, an independent local charity who provide services for women and children who have experienced domestic violence or abuse.

As the UK transitions to a fully digital communications network, with BT Openreach switching off traditional landlines in 2025, now is the time to assess your current communications set up so that you aware of the upgrades required.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved both ISO 14001 Certification and Carbon Neutrality status in line with PAS 2060:2014.

Raising funds for worthy charities and supporting the local community is important to the Directors and employees at Purchase Direct and we were delighted to recently donate over £1,850 to Hearts Milk Bank.

Purchase Direct has been appointed by BMW Group UK to provide a one-off energy consumption audit for all BMW Retailers and Authorised Repairers in the UK and Ireland.  

Purchase Direct has a reputation for finding innovative ways to reduce the cost of doing business and, after researching the opportunities the new open banking regulations meant for processing payments, we knew we could find a solution to help businesses save thousands on debit and credit card payments.

Our team at Purchase Direct recently supported another worthwhile charity and were delighted to raise the grand total of over £2,100 for Mind in Mid Herts during Mental Health Awareness Week.

With climate change becoming an increasingly hot topic, it is more difficult for businesses to ignore their own corporate responsibility and we have committed to achieving carbon neutrality status, in accordance with PAS 2060. 

Open Banking is the revolutionary way for consumers to pay for products and services, utilising the Faster Payment Service alongside ‘Pay by Link’ technology.

Purchase Direct has committed to a further 10-year lease at our head office in Welwyn Garden City and the 8,935 square foot open plan office is currently undergoing major refurbishment to provide a superior working environment for our team of 90 staff to return to post COVID-19.

Vodafone and Three are following EE’s lead by introducing extra charges for some of its customers using their phones in Europe from next year, following the UK’s departure from the EU. 

Our procurement services are continually evolving as we strive to generate additional cost savings and improved service levels for our customers.   

A new Waste Brokerage Scheme has recently launched through our sister company Outsourced Waste Ltd, enabling us to offer new and improved waste pricing with better controls on pricing, reporting and management information. 

We have been made aware of a text message scam that is affecting Android phones on any mobile network (iPhones are currently unaffected). The scam texts are known as ‘Flubot’ SMS Malware and pretend to be from legitimate businesses. 

Following the Supreme Court decision in June 2020 that Visa and Mastercard’s multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) were restrictive of competition, Purchase Direct and chartered accountants UHY Hacker Young have joined forces with Freeths LLP to create an insurance backed scheme for eligible retailers to seek compensation for credit and debit card interchange overcharging.  

Mobile users are being defrauded of £millions using SIM swap fraud.  SIM swapping provides a way for cybercriminals to gain access your personal data and accounts by hijacking your mobile phone number and having your calls go to a SIM in another device.   

Purchase Direct is celebrating its 25^th Birthday this year having been in business since August 1995.  Back then, most businesses still used BT for their telecom, their local electricity company, British Gas for gas and mobile phones were quite a bit bigger. 

There has been a consistent increase in card terminals being stolen from car dealerships to perform refund frauds. It has been reported that criminals are entering dealerships, distracting the salesperson and taking the PDQ terminal to process refunds.

Credit card firms could face significant damages running into billions of pounds in claims after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Visa and MasterCard, in favour of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains; ruling that fees the credit card companies were charging retailers restricted competition. 

The team at Purchase Direct have been providing critical support to GP Surgeries by procuring essential PPE for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whilst Purchase Direct is prioritising everyone’s wellbeing, including our staff, customers and suppliers, we’re still working remotely from the safety of our homes.

Purchase Direct recently supported The Outside Project, the UK’s first LGBTIQ+ Crisis/Homeless Shelter and Community Centre, by raising a total of £2,244.52 for the charity.

O2 has switched on its 5G network, the last of the UK’s mobile operators to do so. The network will initially be available in five cities for O2 customers – Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and London – followed by a further 20 towns and cities before the end of the year. 

Following the drone attacks at the weekend in Saudi Arabia on their largest oil processing plants, oil prices initially surged 20% at the start of trading on Monday with the Brent Crude benchmark seeing its biggest jump in about 30 years.  

We were delighted to raise the grand total of £3,472.14 recently in support of Essex & Herts Air Ambulance and London’s Air Ambulance.

In June 2017 mobile roaming charges in EU countries were abolished and mobile phone users have since been able to use their minutes, texts and data on their mobile phone tariffs when travelling in most EU countries

We were delighted to raise funds to support our local community in November and recently donated £2,473 to Pinewood School, a state special school in Ware for children aged 11 to 16.

Purchase Direct recently attended ‘Management in Practice’, a series of events across four major cities for practice Managers, GPs and those involved in primary care business management. 

BT has announced its plan to completely shut down the ISDN network by 2025 so it is only a matter of time before businesses must upgrade their telecommunications and plan their move to SIP.

We were delighted to donate £2,112 to Herts Young Homeless, an independent charity supporting vulnerable people in Hertfordshire since 1998.

The Payment Services Directive (PSD2) will make it illegal for any business to charge extra for using a debit or credit card in the EU.

Purchase Direct has committed to make a fixed charitable donation each month to Save the Children and it’s the hard work from all our staff which enables us to make this contribution in the first place.

Mobile roaming charges in EU countries come to an end on 15 June 2017 but we still advise caution due to the possible application of fair use charges and the exclusion of certain European countries and Crown Dependencies, such as the Channel Islands, on some mobile tariffs from different networks.

New EU rules on debit card transactions, which came into force on 1 September, penalise automotive retailers and will have a significant impact on already squeezed used car margins.

Fix Auto UK has just appointed Purchase Direct to run their Fix Auto Cost Optimisation Programme. This is an important initiative as they seek to develop their longstanding ambition of building the most profitable bodyshop network in the UK.

It is possible to cut spending in practically every area of a business – marketing, stationery, courtesy vehicles, utilities etc. However there is a fine line between reducing operating costs to the point that it becomes inefficient and costly and ensuring a company is well resourced to deliver maximum profits.