United Press is a UK PR agency for online marketplaces and platform businesses — helping two-sided and multi-sided platforms tell the trust, liquidity and growth story that attracts users, sellers and investors alike.
Why marketplaces need earned media
A marketplace lives or dies on trust and liquidity: buyers need to believe sellers are credible, sellers need to believe demand is real, and investors need to believe the flywheel is turning. Independent coverage does all three at once — it signals momentum, reassures both sides of the market, and validates your growth narrative in a way your own marketing can’t. For platforms fighting the chicken-and-egg problem, that credibility is a genuine growth lever.
The media that matters for UK marketplaces
Startup and investor media like Sifted, UKTN and Business Insider reach the capital and the operator community, while the relevant vertical and retail trade press reach your specific supply and demand sides. National business desks pick up strong growth and category stories. We help you target the mix that builds trust with the audiences that matter to your model.
How we approach marketplace PR
We build stories around the metrics that prove a marketplace is working — GMV growth, category expansion, seller success stories, and trust-and-safety investments — plus commentary on the shifts reshaping your sector. We handle outreach, brief your spokespeople, and report on results. We don’t promise specific placements; we run a process built to earn them.
FAQ
We’re pre-liquidity — is it too early for PR? Not necessarily. Early narrative and investor visibility can help you raise the capital that funds liquidity.
Can PR help with trust and safety perception? Yes — proactively communicating your safeguards is one of the most valuable things a marketplace can do.
Tell us about your platform and we’ll map a realistic route to coverage that supports growth on both sides.
PR for UK marketplaces: two sides of a business, one story, and a regulator now reading both
A marketplace has to be interesting to sellers and to shoppers at once, and the British press covers those two audiences from opposite ends of the building. Retail Week, founded in 1988 and published by William Reed, along with Retail Gazette and InternetRetailing, writes for retail leadership. ChannelX, which spent years as Tamebay, writes for the people who actually list the stock. Consumer coverage sits with money and shopping desks and with Which?, which has repeatedly tested what turns up for sale on marketplaces. Since April 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority has been enforcing the consumer provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act directly. What you may claim about reviews and pricing changed that month.
The CMA rewrote your copy
The consumer provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 took effect in April 2025, giving the Competition and Markets Authority direct enforcement powers over practices including fake reviews and drip pricing. Anything you say publicly about review authenticity, headline prices or urgency messaging is now a compliance statement as well as a marketing one. Get it right before you brief a journalist on it.
Sellers make the best stories
Trade editors covering online retail want the merchant’s experience: what a small British seller earns, what the fees actually cost, how long payouts take, what happened when an account was suspended. A named seller with real figures who will speak on the record is far stronger material than platform growth numbers, and it demonstrates confidence that platform statistics never do.
Peak trading owns the calendar
Black Friday, the golden quarter and the January returns wave dominate UK retail reporting, and the trade press starts commissioning peak previews in late summer. Have your data, your merchant case studies and your spokesperson ready by September. Offering peak commentary in the last week of November means joining a queue behind every retailer and payments firm in the country.
Numbers retail journalists use
Office for National Statistics retail sales, the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor and IMRG online index figures are the recognised reference points, and Retail Week publishes against them. Companies House filings will be checked for any UK entity you name. Your own transaction data can work well if you state the period, the category definitions and the number of sellers behind the figures.
Safety and counterfeits will come up
Which? and consumer affairs reporters have run repeated investigations into unsafe and counterfeit goods listed on marketplaces, and the Office for Product Safety and Standards takes an active interest. Whatever your vetting, verification and takedown processes are, document them and be ready to describe them plainly. Declining to answer becomes the story faster in this sector than in almost any other.
Tax and identity are live issues
HMRC reporting rules for digital platforms, VAT treatment of overseas sellers and seller identity verification are recurring subjects in the trade and money press. A marketplace that can explain clearly how it handles seller onboarding, tax reporting and the removal of bad actors has genuinely useful comment to offer. Vague reassurance invites the follow-up question you were avoiding.
Marketplace stories UK editors commission
Retail and ecommerce journalism follows margin, trust and volume. If your announcement does not touch one of those three, it is unlikely to survive the morning conference.
- Merchant economics, covering commission structures, payout terms, advertising costs on platform and what changes to any of them mean for small British sellers
- Category and demand data drawn from real transactions, showing what the country is buying, in which regions, and how that has shifted over a stated period
- Trust and safety operations, including seller verification, counterfeit removal, product safety checks and how disputes between buyer and seller are resolved
- Regulatory developments under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, plus HMRC platform reporting and how marketplaces are adapting to both
- Peak trading performance across Black Friday and the golden quarter, with volumes, delivery performance and the January returns picture that follows
- Structural news: new category launches, international expansion into or out of the UK, logistics partnerships, funding, consolidation and platform closures
Why marketplace pitches get spiked
Retail desks see a great deal of platform publicity and almost all of it says the same thing. These are the specific reasons an editor stops reading before the second paragraph.
- Growth with no denominator. Transactions up by a large percentage means nothing without the base. Retail editors work with absolute figures daily and will notice the omission immediately.
- Buyer-side language sent to seller-side titles. A shopping campaign pitched to a publication read by merchants, or fee news sent to a consumer desk, wastes both approaches at once.
- Trust and safety questions deflected. Answering a counterfeit or product safety query with a statement about taking these matters seriously guarantees that sentence appears, unhelpfully, in the piece.
- Consumer survey with no method. Shopping habit research is common enough that editors check. Name the agency, the sample size and the fieldwork window, or it will not be used.
- Peak commentary offered in late November. By then the previews are written and the desks are covering trading itself. September is when peak stories are commissioned and allocated.
Not sure which of these applies to your story? Send it to ceo@unitedpress.uk and we will tell you straight.
What UK marketplace founders ask us
Should we pitch retail trade press or consumer media?
It depends on which side of the platform you are trying to grow. Retail Week, Retail Gazette, InternetRetailing and ChannelX reach retailers and merchants, so they help supply. Consumer money and shopping desks reach buyers. The two require different material and different spokespeople, and combining them into one release generally produces a document that persuades neither audience.
How has the DMCC Act changed what we can say publicly?
Considerably. Since the consumer provisions came into force in April 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority can enforce directly against practices including fake reviews and drip pricing. That makes public statements about review integrity, headline pricing and countdown messaging a legal exposure as well as a marketing choice. Have compliance review any campaign that touches reviews, discounts or urgency before it goes out.
Are seller case studies worth the effort?
They are usually the strongest asset you have. A named British seller with real revenue figures, a clear account of what the platform did for them and permission to be quoted gives a journalist the human story that platform statistics cannot. Recruit them properly, prepare them for questions about fees, and accept that a seller who will only say positive things reads as coached.
What data will a UK retail journalist accept from us?
Aggregated transaction data works when you disclose the period, the categories and the number of sellers involved, and when it can be set against recognised benchmarks such as ONS retail sales, the BRC-KPMG monitor or IMRG online figures. Anything presented without a base number, or that conveniently shows only your best category, tends to be cut during editing.
How should we handle a counterfeit or product safety story?
Directly and quickly. Consumer journalists and Which? investigate marketplace listings regularly, and this subject is not going away. Have documented processes for seller verification, listing checks, takedowns and buyer remedies, and be prepared to describe them specifically, including how long removal takes. A vague reassurance in place of a process is treated as an admission and reported as one.
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