Doug Silkstone is the founder of WithSeismic and editor of Vouchernaut. He writes researched guides to what is worth buying, booking and doing, with clear sources and practical trade-offs. withseismic.com
Buying Christmas presents for a mum who says she wants nothing? I'd choose between a treat she'd never buy herself and something she'll use up. Picks from UK shops from about £10 to £60, with personalised lead times, sending from afar, clubbing together, and gifts for nan, including in a care home.
Twenty-four doors can hold £10 of chocolate or a £245 box of skincare. I compare what's inside each kind of advent calendar against its price, read the beauty shops' worth figures as their own sums, and check which ones ship in time for 1 December.
Stockings are where Christmas budgets quietly leak, £3 at a time. I'd set a number per stocking, fill each with something to eat, something to use and one thing to keep, check the age on anything for a toddler, and give the adults a stocking of their own.
Buying for a dad who says he wants nothing? I'd start from what he already does, his food, his drink, his garden or his sport, and pick something he'll use up or go and do. Picks from UK shops from a few pounds to about £60, with what personalised gifts and Christmas delivery need.
A hamper's price pays for the basket, the packing and the delivery as well as the food. Here's how I'd read the contents list, match it to the person opening it, and get it there with its dates intact.
Secret Santa is hardest when you've drawn a colleague you barely know and the limit is £10. I'd buy something they can eat or use up, keep it inside the limit once delivery is added, and save the jokes and personalised gifts for people you know well.
A bouquet for the flower lover, an amaryllis for someone who forgets to water, or a Christmas cactus they can keep for years. Here's how I'd choose a gift that feels right for the person receiving it.
Klaviyo now charges for every profile it can email, so a Shopify shop's bill grows with its checkout customers as well as its subscribers. Shopify Messaging covers the basics for little, Omnisend is the closest cheaper rival, and Privy suits shops whose first job is growing the list. Klaviyo is $100 a month at 5,000 profiles.
A CRM keeps every customer, email and deal where the whole team can see them. Pipedrive suits small sales teams, Zoho CRM gives the most for the least, Copper suits Gmail businesses and Capsule is the simple British option. HubSpot's free plan is fine for two, then the price climbs.
Substack is free until readers pay, then keeps 10%; beehiiv, Kit, Ghost and the rest charge a flat fee instead. I work out which costs less at 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers, who brings you readers, who lets you leave with them, and what UK writers need to know about VAT and consent.
A form builder turns your questions into a page people fill in. Tally is the best free Typeform alternative for most people, Fillout suits forms that take payments, book calls or collect signatures, and SmartSurvey keeps survey answers in the UK. Typeform starts at £252 a year plus VAT.
A web scraping API fetches pages and hands back clean data. For feeding an AI app, Firecrawl is the fullest toolkit and Context.dev costs less per page; for protected shops, ScrapingBee, Zyte and Bright Data do better. What 10,000 pages cost on each, and what UK law says.
