One thing that is tricky when you move to a new area is finding local professionals that you can trust. Whether that is a plumber, electrician, someone to fit your blinds, a photographer – when you don’t know, how do you find someone you can trust to do the job?
Well, I recently discovered a website called ‘Bidvine’ that finds the people in your area that fit your criteria and brings their quotes to you. It works across the country, you simply plug in your postcode and what service you need to bring up the quotes. I tested it out by looking for ‘Portrait Photographers for Children in Slough‘.
First of all I went to http://www.bidvine.com and typed in the service I required and my postcode. It’s helpful that it brings up a dropdown list of services as you type in the box. They list lots and lots of different services.
Next comes a page with local services listed. I then was asked more questions to narrow it down, all with checkboxes to make it easy to answer:
Questions were (all with checkbox answers, for which I have put my answers in brackets below):
- How many children are included in this shoot? (2)
- How old are the children in this shoot? (0-5 years)
- Where will this photo be taken? (as recommended)
- Is there a specific theme for this photo shoot? (fun and colourful)
- What style of images are you looking for? (candid and natural)
- In what format would you like the final images? (physical proofs and photos)
- What is your approximate budget? (£100-£250)
- Where can the service be delivered? (The service pro travels to me)
- When do you need it for? (I’m flexible)
- Anything else the photographer needs to know? (No)
Then I needed to create an account to get the bids. I simply logged in with Facebook.
Then I was asked:
- How would I like to receive the quotes?
The mobile number box is optional and I unchecked ‘Professionals may phone me to discuss quotes’ and I unchecked ‘Send me notifications about my project by text message too’. Then I pressed submit request.
This message came up next:
“Request received. We’re checking for matching pros.”
and it said that I would receive custom quotes by Saturday afternoon. They also sent an email which said this:
At first glance, 4 days seems long to get a list of quotes, but it actually says ‘BY’ Saturday afternoon – the photographers individually will email me their quotes.
Within 5 minutes I was emailed my first quote from Tekla Photography with a lovely message from the photographer, the cost and links to his previous work. And in the next hour I was emailed my second quote from Suman Zaman Photography, again with a personal message, the price range and links to previous work. If I wanted to proceed with either, I simply reply to the email to sort out details.
There is a link to click to let the professional know if you no longer need their help, which is a nice and easy touch – sometimes it can be a bit awkward when you say no to a service, so this takes that away.
All in all, I would say Bidvine provide a really useful service in finding trusted professional to you, and it’s great that the quotes come direct to you in your email inbox within a few days, and within an hour in my case. I like that it’s not compulsory to give my mobile number, so I don’t have the worry of being contacted by lots of people – the ball is in my court to contact them if I want to use the service.
If you are looking for a trusted professional, do try out Bidvine.
Sabrina x
This is a collaborative post.
