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Robert Matthams, founder of Shiply.com last night received the annual Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Shell Chairman James Smith handing over the award to Robert Matthams

This award offers entrepreneurs aged between 16 and 30 within the first 18 months of trading the opportunity to stand out from the crowd and receive a cash injection of £10,000 for their business. Ahead of 8 very strong finalists, Robert Matthams was selected as young entrepreneur of the year.

‘It has been very tough’, Robert confessed when he announced the news to us here in Shiply HQ. ‘All other finalists were so talented with brilliant business ideas. I really thought that this was going to be tight.’

As always, let us share the good news with you, our valued members and thank you all very much as without you, we would never have achieved this.

While Britain is facing the postal strikes, one man is doing his best to get the mail through on time.

Ken Holder, 39, spends 12 hours a day cycling about 80km (50 miles) through Plymouth delivering up to 300 letters. Mr. Holder, as the only full time employee of City Cycle Couriers, which he set up after leaving his job in the Fire Service, has to collect, sort and deliver every letter himself.

Ken Holder and his postal bike

He bough the license from Postcomm for £50 in March and as far as he knows, he is the only one-man business to do so. Mr Holder charges 32p for next day delivery service (7p less than Royal Mail first class stamp). So far he has got 15 regular local business customers and since the postal strike was announced, the inquiries have rocketed.

Mr. Holder said: ”Inquiries have certainly grown in recent weeks as more and more companies were becoming concerned. I have had a few smaller businesses start using us in the last week and I’m hoping that we will be able to pick up a few more larger businesses on the back of this.”

When being suggested to buy a van, he resisted: ”A large part of the attraction for customers is that it is just me and my bike and is as environmentally friendly as possible.”

As the latest talks between Royal Mail’s management and the Communication Workers Union to stop the nationwide 24 hour strike planned for Thursday and Friday did not produce any positive resolution, the fear of a real national strike has been widely spread throughout the United Kingdom.

This is most clearly shown by the fact that there have been more and more people searching for alternative couriers as a backup should Royal Mail fail/delay post. The UK’s number one search engine, Google, has seen a staggering increase of 46% in the number of searches for the phrase ”courier” over the past 4 weeks.

Some of you may not seen have any of these before (like us), some might have seen one or two but the point is they are utterly funny so have a good laugh!

Michael Hobby, a lorry driver probably had to pay the highest toilet fee ever when he parked at the parking areas alongside the BP fuel station in Trinity Avenue, Felixstowe.

Totally frustrated trucker Michael and his lorry

Michael, 62, who had used the lorry park many times in the past, could not believe his ears when he was told there were new restriction rules at the park and he had to pay the registration fee (£300 plus VAT) to get his truck back.

Mr. Hobby, of Chepstow Road, Felixstowe said: ”I couldn’t believe it – my tacho showed I had been there eight minutes”

Other dirvers were also frustrated at the new rules and have started a petition.

The company managing the parking area said the changes have been brought in to prevent lorries parking for days at a time. Drivers are still able to park for free, as long as they park at the bays and register at the shop when they arrive.

We were all shocked when we heard the news. Imagine how many extra hours Michael will have to work to earn back the fee he had to pay just for eight minutes parking! Take care, there are sharks out there!

Most people think about trucks as huge, powerful and noisy machines…

But this video will make many of us change our minds. Hey, trucks can be elegant too!

Have a great weekend everybody!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUJOK-o_32w]

Normally, if we see a truck on the road, it can come in different sorts of colour: black, white, red, yellow, blue, green, mixed etc. but very rarely in pink!

So it must be special if a truck is in pink and in this case it is indeed very special. To express his love for his daughter Isabelle on her birthday, argicultural haulage driver Edward Robinson has ordered a brand new pink cab just to make her happy.

Isabelle must have been the happiest girl on her second birthday whilst other little girls might get a doll or a puppy for their birthdays, Isabelle’s special present was a huge Mercedes Actros tractor unit bearing her name and painted in her favourite colour pastel pink.

Edward and happy daddy’s princess Isebelle besides her birthday present

Whilst Edward is now a heroic father in Isebelle’s eyes, he seems to consider the birthday present as very normal:

He said: “I was pleased with the price and the product looks very good. And of course Isabelle absolutely loves it.”

What a great father he is! We hope Edward is doing well with his haulage business and makes Isebelle even happier in her birthdays to come.

We have just found out that industrial action was not the only thing which caused Royal Mail delays. It seems that being a postman is not a boring job as people say.

Hope you enjoy this and have a great weekend.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quRTusTKjfM]

Here’s another feature to make your life even easier when listing a shipment on Shiply.

Previously, the first step when you listed a shipment was to select a category for your items.

The previous listing layout

From lots of feedback and testing we understand that sometimes it can be a bit difficult to find the correct category for your goods. So, we have developed a new tool which suggests a category for you. Much easifer and faster, we hope!

The new listing layout with Find a category feature

So far with our intensive testing the feature has worked great. However, if you think there needs to be some improvements to make it better, do send us feedback!

Have a great weekend.