About ActSmart
ActSmart is a unique organisation, dedicated to the support and development of businesses involved in outdoor pursuits, leisure and home activity speciality retail. Whether you are retailer, supplier, service provider or a business committed to promoting public participation in leisure activities, this community has been built for you.
ActSmart has over 2200 Members and a Specialist Retail Community of c.8000 businesses, making it one of the largest and fastest growing UK trade organisations in the leisure sector.
ActSmart is active in retail advocacy, representing speciality retail on the Department of Business Innovation and Skills Retail Policy Forum, is a leading member of the Independent Retailers Confederation and a regular contributor to thev All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group.
What does ActSmart do?
ActSmart delivers a range of services and support from specialist providers to meet small business and specialist sector needs.
A summary of what we provide is listed below or click here to see our full list of current services.
- Consumer promotion and branding
- Sales development tools
- Commercial cost savings
- People, recruitment and skills development
- Small business and sector specific advocacy
- News, information and advice
- Market research and networking
If your sector has a specific commercial requirement, ActSmart can act as a sourcing and delivery agent.
What markets do ActSmart operate in?
ActSmart's primary partners are trade associations, where we have a proven track record of creating partnerships that assist the association to develop its membership, width of offering and industry profile, benefiting the sector as a whole.
ActSmart currently partners businesses in 4 sectors: Cycles, Snowsports, Outdoor Pursuits and Creative with a number of other sectors in discussion.
If your business doesn't fit into these sectors you can join ActSmart under our ‘General' sector membership, or if you are a trade organisation you may want to talk to us about a partnership arrangement.
What does it cost to become an ActSmart member?
ActSmart is funded by membership subscriptions, but you can join ActSmart for FREE as a Bronze member and upgrade your membership status at anytime.
You can find out about membership costs and how ActSmart's services and support are applied at each subscription level here.
Gold is our most popular membership package, giving access to an optimum range of commercial services and promotional tools.
What do our members say?
"When I came to renew our membership recently, it occurred how many times I'd used ActSmart in the last year. I've asked for workshop output comparisons Vs last year's industry average, I've had legal advice as well as marketing tips. We also used their finance partner Moneyway, hugely successful.
We have also had plenty of use from your website. (I'm just updating our profile today). It's very conclusive and easy to navigate. The site is absolutely huge and in an age when the internet is the most powerful influence on consumers buying, it's a great tool.
The Cytech training discounts are another perk that makes the yearly membership fee, seem entirely worth it.
Every time I have phoned for help/info, I've been impressed by the cheerful, friendly and professional staff. No one can seem to do enough to help !
Thanks guy's, so nice to deal with".
Simon Firth, Cycle Mart.
Where do I start?
You can enrol online here and at the very least we recommend that you sign up for your FREE Bronze membership today.
If you operate in one of our current partnership sectors as a Bronze member you can create a free consumer facing promotional listing for your business within The Experts specialist retail community now.
For any further information please contact us. ActSmart is staffed by a dedicated team of people and supported by a whole network of specialist advisors throughout our partner businesses.
ActSmart is a division of C2Zero Ltd, an independent privately owned company operating in the retail and SME sectors. We have no links with any of our partners, we keep the interests of our community at the heart of everything we do and you can trust that we will always listen to what you have to say.
We're members of..
ActSmart are involved with trade associations across all the markets we operate in. Whilst the ACT and ActSmart work closely as a partnership to support our members in the cycling industry, we rely on other trade associations to help reach our members in other markets.
The OIA
The Outdoor Industries Association (OIA) is the trade association for the outdoor industry in the UK.
They provide business success by the support of its members and the promotion of members products and services for the outdoor leisure pursuits market in the UK.
The SIGB
As
the trade association for snowsports in the UK, the SIGB have a lot of
influence and support in the snow sports industry through their consumer
brand, Snowlife which aims to generate interest and ultimately increase
participation in skiing and snowboarding at all levels.
