The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Product decision · 2019
Monzo and The Big Issue made the magazine resellable; vendor sales rose 15%
A QR code made each Big Issue resellable, every payment going to the vendor, who also got a Monzo account; participating vendors' weekly sales rose 15%.
Monzo · The Big Issue
the move
The Big Issue is sold by people facing poverty to provide a wage and purpose, but free content online and the rise of cashless payments squeezed street vendors hard. A vendor earned about £1.25 per sale and averaged one sale per hour; 75% of regular readers bought 3 of 4 issues monthly, so the buyer base was unusually loyal.
FCB Inferno and Monzo launched Pay It Forward in April 2019. Each magazine got a unique QR code linked to a custom Monzo.me page with the vendor's photo and bio; buyers paid at least £2.50, the money split between magazine and vendor, and readers could resell the copy so the vendor earned again. Monzo changed policy so vendors without a permanent address could open accounts.
The pilot raised participating vendors' weekly sales by 15%; scaled to one resale per magazine it would add £10m a year. The £17k campaign, with celebrities like Gary Lineker passing copies into circulation, earned 93.5 million impressions without traditional media spend.
why it works
- It rebuilt the product rather than asking for donations: each magazine became an income stream the buyer reactivated.
- QR payments removed the cash barrier of street vending, and Monzo's address policy removed the banking barrier.
- Turning readers into resellers harnessed the peer effect: people give more readily when asked by someone they know.
- Every resale returned to the original vendor, so the more the magazine travelled, the more the seller earned with no extra inventory.
what transfers
When a product's buyers already champion its mission, redesign it so each loyal customer can resell it: the same physical unit then earns the seller repeatedly, and giving scales through peers.
what came after
The campaign put The Big Issue back on the national news agenda and changed Monzo's policy so vendors without a fixed address could open accounts. Eurobest 2019 and the D&AD archive recognized the work, making it a reference for fintech and purpose-led business-model redesign.
references
- PAY IT FORWARD — Eurobest 2019 winners entry (Direct)
- The Big Issue 'Pay it forward' by FCB Inferno
- Pay It Forward — D&AD archive
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.