NDRC Inventorium and IIA initiative to accelerate 20 SMEs into online trading
NDRC’s Inventorium programme and the Irish Internet Association (IIA) are to engage directly for free with 20 small Irish businesses to transform them into online retailers with new export and jobs potential over five weeks.
Applications for the new Clicktailing programme are now being invited through www.clicktailing.com.
Clicktailing is an intensive retail accelerator scheme, which will run in five-week bursts. It brings together online retailing experts to provide hands-on support for participating businesses with web design services, payments systems, product photography, logistics advice and marketing skills, at no cost to the participants.
The Inventorium and IIA partnership will also be supported by An Post and by the Crafts Council of Ireland, which promotes the indigenous crafts industry. Some 140,000 Irish businesses don’t yet engage in any form of e-commerce at all and 50,000 don’t even have a website. While 23pc of Irish enterprises do currently engage in online sales, only a fifth (21pc) of their total sales are generated this way.
Clicktailing will see all 20 businesses designing and executing their online strategy during the five weeks of the programme. They will be supported by professional stylists and photographers, online advertising and marketing gurus, software engineers, online payments and logistics providers, and e-tail mentors.
Each business can expect to launch their online store and begin taking orders online and generating revenues during the five weeks.
“Export-led growth from indigenous enterprises is one of the most effective ways to secure and grow employment,” said Mark Kearns, director of Inventorium.
“As online spending continues to grow, Irish businesses must react and carve out their share of this market if they are secure their businesses into the future. It is completely unacceptable that over half of all online sales are going abroad because consumers cannot buy their products online from Irish businesses.”
Joan Mulvihill, CEO, Irish Internet Association added: “The intensive nature of this programme has been designed specifically to achieve an immediate impact online.
“The potential for Irish export growth through the internet is crystal clear but we must move quickly to exploit this opportunity. Clicktailing is an important step towards this goal and it also ties in closely with national policy and the disruptive reform measures included in the Action Plan for Jobs.”