Around this time of year we get asked what is the most popular website to buy from or what would be a unique items to buy on-line. Ironically people also wish it to be unusual or unique, something that isn’t in every stocking, well why not get a Christmas voucher for a Discover Scuba Diving Course.

Ok, these vouchers don’t have to be used on Stephen’s Day, but when its thawed out a bit more it would be a great way to get back outdoors and see a different side of Ireland.

Scubadive West in Connemara run Discover Scuba courses and they have a perfect sheltered cove  as you can see from this aerial photo of the Dive Centre here.

This shallow bay is where I learned to dive nearly 20 years ago and in fact I snorkeled there many times before I took the plunge and learned to use Scuba.

This Irish owned family business have generations of experience in teaching and without realizing it, you learn from Cillian or Breff in a very easy going approach. But in fact , it’s structured, methodical and safe.

A good teacher make all the difference and it doesn’t matter if you’re learning woodwork or learning how to use a breathing regulator in 5 foot of water, being able to understand someone giving you instructions easily makes learning all the bit easier.

6mm dry suits also help !

With good equipment that is maintained and updated each season the guys at Scubadive west know that having these high standards makes it a joy to be introduced to this unique sport. We really have no idea of the wonders that are just a matter of feet from the surface and when you dive in the sheltered cove for the first time you hear the murmur of excitement coming through the regulator as the others in the group all start to see the fish, star fish, crabs and the amount of life down there.

David Attenborough would be jealous of this!

Now I could start to go on about how the weightlessness of being under the water and feeling yourself move with the ebb and flow of the tide make you feel like one with nature, but that’s getting a bit to deep !

For a Christmas present that is unique and will put a smile on that persons face this year, I would highly recommend getting them a Discover Scuba voucher from these guys.

www.scubadivewest.com

Just thought I’d throw it out there and let businesses with online shops know that depending on the software used to build your site and the way that it was built etc, you might be in for a surprise when you look at your bank account and find that the monies paid in were actually paid to someone else’s account !!!

Security Patches and Fixes

If your site is not fully up-to-date and by up-to-date, I mean yesterday or today and not in the past 3 or 4 months then I would strongly recommend that you login and install any patches or updates that are available. Each day new robots trawl the net to find open doors at the back of ecommerce website to see if they can hack the site. This is not only in Open Source, but most online shop software and hosting. (For you techy guys out there it could be a folder left at 777 permissions.)

They get into the back of the site and replace your bank details with their own!!

Christmas shopping is an ideal time for these viruses and bots to travel around the net and change your site so they will get all the funds transferred to them !

Be aware, Be safe, install the latest updates available.

In a meeting today I was demonstrating an online shop to a business and showing them how the administration panel would look like and then potential customer noticed that there were 318 customers on the site at the one time as the system shows us the number of users online.

How many people fit into your shop?

Then the potential customer realised that with an online shop you are not restricted to the amount of people you can have in your shop. Where as a traditional retail unit is restricted by the physical size of a premises. “This is amazing and we are definately going to set up the shop” was the result of the meeting.

So the next time you are talking to a shop owner, mention to them the benefits of “Clicks and Mortar” and then instead of building an extension that they could actually fit more customers in if they went online!

Ecommerce works, Be Part of it. Call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748 for details.

Yet another business closes it doors in Dublin with the loss of jobs and lively hoods. Waterstone Book Stores closes two of their shops in Dublin. Part of the HMV Group that has been heavily hit by the Recession and the Digital Age.

Traditional shops always amaze me these days as to how they can make money and continue to pay the overheads that come with them. Setting up online shops has really show me that if I had the right product I definitely be thinking about ordering a 20ft container from China and selling them online.

Ipad, Kindle, eReaders and Electronic books

These are devices from “Tomorrows World” showing us how life would be in 2011, but they didn’t tell us the consequences of the technology in terms of how the jobs in the publishing industry would change from counter sales to warehouse/shipping sales or even data centre management. The jobs are moving and people must be ready for their jobs to change. Education and Training in the IT industry is always an asset. People must remember that jobs are no longer for life, we don’t start in the post room at at 15 and retire at 65 with a nice new timepiece.

As sad as it is that these stores are changing, remember that others are been employed in online sales, shipping, downloading etc. Life changes and technology is always making jobs or equipment obsolete. Management of shops move to online management and SEO techniques to help grab attention of viewers and push sales.

I’m not meaning this to sound like a “I told you so” but like the recession in Ireland and the property bubble, did we really think that things would stay the same forever?!?

If you have a shop and are wondering if the Internet is really an option for you call us today on 053 9430748 for a chat or call the Irish Internet Association in Dublin www.iia.ie and get some stats about the increase in Online sales in Ireland

Just watching the the 2011 Irish budget on the net and it looks like the Government has finally seen that money is moving in huge amounts online and that they could part of the action. With online sales in Ireland around €15,000,000 a day, I guess its small compared to the online betting.

Now the Government are taking online businesses seriously and they are taxing the online betting websites the same as the shops. And why not, its a fast amount of money travelling in the clouds over their heads and not being taxed to the same as an actual “real” shop !

More and more we are seeing businesses moving online and being paid by WorldPay and PayPal to pick on a few and this is then spend online, and I wonder if the government are seeing any of this money. I doubt it.

Facebook Money

Facebook are now bringing out their own currency so that businesses can buy and spend money online. It may sound small to some people, but it has an audience of 500,000,000 people !

That’s more than in the Euro zone !

This money is like Disney dollars, sounds silly but really its hundreds of millions that is circulating in a certain circle. The new “circle” is the Internet and the vast amounts of money moving online. We look forward to seeing more and more businesses moving online and using the web wisely.

Did the VAT rate change today?

We have worked on many online shops over the years and one of the funny things to come up in the conversation is the ability to run a business from a private house, especially if you have a family. Running an online shop and using the house as storage often leads to issues with storage and the availability to have enough stock in place.

Many businesses choose to either reduce the amount of items they sell or reduce the number of lines they sell. Another issue is the insurance of the stock that you keep in the house, no to mention the security of the stock if it is expensive small items.

One of the suggestions that we have to these types of businesses is to use a storage business, here in the south east, it would mean talking to Staffords Self Storage.  Secure units that are covered by CCTV and an owner that Bites! John Stafford has built a number of storage units to suit all needs, ranging from some as small as wardrobes to garage size lock ups that are ideals for storing cars and holiday home / camping / ourdoor equipment.

So if you have an online shop in the south east and are wondering where else you could store the products besides from your kids bedroom or the leaky shed why not take a visit to Stafford Self Storage near Gorey, Co. Wexford

Contact is John Stafford

www.staffordsselfstorage.com

We are working on a new exciting directory for a existing client who wanted a directory for Ireland, but specifically a Health Directory. The website is still in Beta testing but they have asked us to go ahead and put the site live to start getting the name out there.

Get Listed.

The idea is not new, but the way we have structured the site should help get the site listed in search engines, I know they have a big hill to climb going up against the major players in the Irish health market, but this dedicated team has promise.

We have made the site to allow a user to get listed in a category of their choice or even two or three, then the user can enter a payment to get listed straight away.

Would would like to wish John & Clare and the team the very best with the new site and we will be keeping an eye on you guys to see how the stats and listings go.

Services provided:

• Domain name registration
• Web Hosting
• Web Development
• Website Design
• Training
• Ecommerce

www.irishhealthdirectory.com

Our great friends Michelle & Audrey from our online wedding shop called All About Weddings have finally taken the plunge and upgraded their website to now be fully accepting Irish Debit Cards called Laser Cards. The site also accepts the usual Visa, Master Cards.

While we were at it we created a brand new fully content managed website that will give the girls the ability to upload and amend all the sites content. The last time we gave them this type of functionality was for the shop part of the website just before St Pactricks Day a few years ago.

When we came back into the office following the bank holidays we saw thousands of products. They had stayed up all night for the long weekend and packed their on-line shelves !

The new redesigned site will now give the girls the ability to upload to a Gallery Section they requested to show off their bridal Bouquets and also to give them an area to have an online wedding fair. This business is no stranger to the lime light and they have been featured on TV & print media in Ireland.

To be honest. . . We love’m, they are interested in their products and this is evident in their passion for their industry. I wish all people in business could be like this.

I would like to wish them the very best in their new redesigned website and I hope they don’t stay up too late packing the order boxes as I hear there has been some late ones recently.

Services Provided

• Website Redesign
• Content Management
• Ecommerce Integration
• Hard Work !

www.allaboutweddings.ie

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to attend tonight’s talk given by local lad, Grant Masterson from Wreckless Skate Board Shop here in Gorey Co. Wexford. I first met Grant when he was working for Webdream Solutions next door door to our own office on John Street in Gorey too. Webdream are a website design and programming company who at the time were specialising in online shops and estate agent websites. Grant progressed on from webdream and set up his own skate shop in the same office once webdream went virtual and moved their offices “online”.

We were delighted to help out Grant in the early days of setting up his business. Having a shop is great, having a shop that is open 24/7 is better. Knowing how to communicate your message through the social media websites and attract buyers to your online shop is all part of what we do every week at Cada Media Ltd.

A small helping hand by giving him access to broadband meant that instead of standing idle waiting for customers to come in, it meant that Grant could do his online marketing and promoting whilst he wasn’t dealing with customers in the shop.

One small piece of advice we give many other people looking to sell on the Internet is to look at Open Source software to help cut down on the initial set up costs. Although they can need some customisation and tweaking as many are originally very basic and have to be configured. I think the programmers do this to give jobs to the ones installing them and setting them us.! Us mainly!

Anyway, you can purchase this type of software, but you should also look at ZenCart or OSCommerce too as they are used by thousands of online shops around the world. We too use and set this us for businesses too.

Wreckless is currently OSCommerce and since its original install it has had many upgrades, many plugin’s installed and configured, many designs. In fact I think its also been totally revamped and the database backed up and the entire site overhauled by Webdream. A fantastic job if I do say and well done to Joel Driver for his work.

Tonight’s presentation will be great for people in Gorey to see how a local lad can come good and really use the Internet and it’s strengths. Remember the snow in January and all the shops closed. . . . Guess who’s online shop was still taking orders?

Well done to grant and all at Wreckless on demonstrating that the web and shopping are ideal partners.

There is also a presentation from someone about a business directory for Gorey, but since we also have one called Gorey Links, I won’t reinvent the wheel there!

Unique Gift Ideas.

Bates Restaurant Rathdrum

Earlier this year we were delighted to be approached by a great restaurant in Wicklow called Bates Restaurant in Rathdrum in Wicklow. We created a site for the guys and all went well. We always plan for success with all our clients and expansion is always on the horizon.

With more and more people looking on-line for unique gift ideas in Ireland we thought it would suit our friends in Wicklow to be one of the restaurants in Wicklow to have a availability to their customers to purchase gift vouchers online.

We met and discussed the idea and talked about how we could progress the site to being able to process secure transactions online, how the user would navigate through the site and the trustworthiness of the site.

Starting off the ideas by talking to our colleagues in WorldNet TPS and checking what the latest offers for small businesses to see how they could benefit from the growth of online sales. Choosing the best option for Bates we then got back to the guys there and let them know about what we needed including on-line merchant ID number from either Bank of Ireland or Elevon.

Then we purchased the Secure Certificate that is required (  this is the https://  ) bit in the web address that gives the site the secure padlock on your browser footer.

Working with our content management system we integrated our online shop facility and worked closely with the programmers from WorldNet TPS to make sure it all worked according to regulations and securely.

The Restaurant is now open for business 24 hours a day and accepts Credit Card transactions from VISA, Master Card and Laser Debit cards in Ireland.

www.BatesRestaurant.ie

Best of luck with the new upgraded site lads.

Dave