Want to improve your eCommerce or online presence? The IEDR’s Optimise Fund is here to help

What is Optimise?

OPTIMISE works with business owners to plan, develop and implement significant web enhancements and e-commerce capabilities to their existing websites. It’s completely free to enter, you just need to have a .ie website that’s online and be an SME. 15 small businesses will win 10 days-worth of technical and marketing consultancy, training and web development services to develop their eCommerce and/or online presence. Now, entering its sixth year, the Optimise has provided assistance to 75 Irish companies.

What will it do for my website?

Every business is different and there is no one size fits all blanket solution. With Optimise we work with every winner on an individual basis to figure out what improvements we can offer that will have the most impact for their business. Some of the most popular deliverables include:

• Mobile responsive designs
• Online booking systems
• Online payment systems
• New content management systems
• Content marketing calendars

How do I apply?

It’s easy. Go to https://www.iedr.ie/why-choose-ie/optimise-application-form/ and fill out the application form. It’s straightforward and shouldn’t take more than half an hour to complete. Applications close on the 8^th April so don’t delay, Optimise is here to help you and your business take the next step online.

Who are the IEDR and why do you run Optimise?

Here at the .ie Domain Registry (IEDR) we manage the .ie domain name. Part of our role is to support the Irish internet community. We recently conducted some research into the online presence and eCommerce capabilities of Irish SMEs and micro-enterprises. We found that the vast majority of companies are not fully utilising the Internet or online sales opportunities to drive growth in their businesses.

Our IE Digital Health Index surveyed 500 Irish SMEs and micro-enterprises across three separate waves of research and found that only 35% of Irish SMEs with a website can process payments online and only 42% can take sales orders online. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the IEDR eCommerce Website Development Fund, OPTIMISE, is here to help.

Donal O’Nuallain, IEDR

Fighting payment security fraud

The facts about fraud

The fight against fraud is proving to be a hard slog, with recent figures showing the criminals edging ahead.

A 2015 report by Financial Fraud Action¹ showed a 6% increase in payment industry fraud in 2014, with total losses on UK-issued cards reached £479m.

Worse still, industry experts are tipping this trend to accelerate in the next three years. That’s largely due to the growth in remote channels such as e-commerce and m-commerce.

In 2004, remote purchases accounted for 30% of UK card fraud losses. By 2014, this had surged to 69%.

Card fraud losses split by type (as percentage of total losses)

(Source: FFA Fraud the Facts 2015)

“Managing payment fraud is certainly becoming more of a focal point across the payments industry,” says Paul Jevons, head of Barclaycard’s Payment Security and Fraud product team.

“An increasing amount of fraud is being prevented. Issuers, acquirers, gateways and merchants are all playing their part, but fraudsters are evolving at an alarming rate and becoming increasingly innovative in their approach.”

What’s fuelling the growth?

There are a number of factors behind the growth in payment fraud.

An expansion in payment and channel options has given criminals more areas to target, while the rise in cross-border shopping also opens the door to more potential fraud.

It’s also been hard to miss some of the worrying data breach headlines that have emerged in recent months.

And some retailers are leaving themselves open to attack. A frictionless experience might appeal to the consumer, but it’s important to make sure that security aspects aren’t neglected.

Fighting back

The card payment industry has introduced number of measures to help.

Services such as 3D Secure, the Address Verification Service, Card Security Code and Industry Card Hot File already offer protection, and future developments are expected too. These include real-time solutions that use sophisticated data science techniques to foil the fraudsters.

“At Barclaycard we are committed to reducing the impact of fraud on our merchants, utilising the tools that exist today but also developing new defences to protect against the developing threats,” says Paul.

“We work with all our partners to improve fraud prevention. We are also working with merchants to prevent the loss of card data from security breaches.”

What can you do?

If you can prevent the loss of cardholder data, you will reduce the likelihood of being hit by fraud. You’ll also cut the risk of being hit by financial loss or reputational damage as a result of a breach.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) helps you to do this.

PCI-DSS helps to secure the payment data of the cardholder and prevent it from being used fraudulently. Anyone taking card payments is required to adopt it.

PCI-DSS covers six key areas:

Discover more about the six goals of PCI DSS

There are detailed requirements concerning storing and using card data, but some basic good practice can go a long way. Using a hosted payment page and keeping software up to date can add significant protection to your business.

Barclaycard can also help with any expertise you need to become compliant.

“We have a dedicated Payment Security team, all with PCI DSS qualifications. We are also on the board of advisors for the PCI security standards council,” says Paul.

“This means we are really well placed to offer merchants the support they need, as well as being able to help customers who do have a security breach continue trading and mitigate the impact on their business.”

Alistair Singer, Barclaycard

Top Tips for Online Marketing and eCommerce Shops

Content, Social, Adwords and Analytics!

These were the topics covered at one of the very popularRetail Excellence Ireland eCommerce workshops which I attended in Dublins’ Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown.

As many of my clients run eCommerce websites it is important that I stay updated on trends and tools so that I can then offer them the best advice and service possible to my clients so here I share with you some of the nuggets gleaned from today’s workshop.

First up we had a talk entitled ‘Content & Social – The Critical Combo’ from theaward winning team at Wolfgang Digital.

Speakers: Alan Coleman, Roisin Linnie & Michaela Simpson

10X Content aka Big Content

Ok so the gist of this is rather than spending time doing a number of ‘good’ content blogs every month instead aim to create a SUPER blog that stands out from the masses and ticks all Googles’ boxes. Use creatives such as infographics / video to make an impact. Pull your users onto the blog post for engagement and always ensure you have your Call To Action (CTA) obvious. How? Here’s the formula they suggest:

1. Identify an engaging topic that will interest your market based on your analytics / insights (eg biggest search term used to find your product/ tweet with biggest reach/engagements etc) eg ‘Stress Management’

• See what content related to this is already out there – what comes up on page 1 of Google – how does it look? Is it outdated? Could you do better?
• Create a tenfold better article using creative content such as easy to understand & visually pleasing graphics (infographics are great for this) or make a professional looking YouTube video!

User Interaction On Your Blog Post: One case study they showed was based on a Facebook competition which linked to this 10X blog. The entrants had to answer a question based on the text within the page and submit the answer via the website.

This meant that Google saw traffic from Facebook to this blog and also user interaction on the actual page via the submission button. This in turn gave the blog piece extra SEO points (search engine optimisation) that meant it found a home on page one of Google Images ( this sample focused on an infographic)

Other Points:

They also worked to get back links from quality websites by literally informing them of this great new content they could share with their users. Cheeky eh? I like it!

They ran through image optimisation for web something we have spoken of here before – It really IS important so spend time doing it. I know I have seen the results again and again for clients when time is taken to name, size and tag out images appropriately.

To Summarise, Roisin Advises the following steps:

Pre Campaign Steps: 

• Simple Idea (use insights for ideas)
• Does your audience have this on their phone already? eg Image of family day out for ‘day out’ photo competition
• Choose your goals
• Offer a reward

During Campaign:

• Engage constantly!! Say thanks, share, reply
• Target efficiently ( Facebook / Twitter etc)
• Utilise this lovely Authentic content ( replacing stock images immediately)
• Reward your advocates ( extra prize perhaps? note that something as simple as a retweet for an SME can be worth it’s weight in gold)

Post Campaign

• Create an audience that you can use in the future from your participants (capture and save this data!)
• Remarket to this audience ( they obviously like your product or service)
• Keep using the User Generated Content (UGC) as it is great authentic content that you simply cannot buy.

Google Adwords and Analytics

Speaker: Aiden Blake We were treated to a talk by Googles’ very own Aiden Blake who walked us through a typical e-commerce sales funnel and focused on the benefits of remarketing.

Remarketing

Perhaps what most interested in me is the wealth of data each of us already have in our analytics (all my clients get analytics integrated to their websites whether they then use them or not) which can then be used for remarketing, reaching people who have visited our sites and are thus likely to be interested in these services again.

The main aim of remarketing (or retargetting as it is also known) is to re-engage interested users who have left your website through visual display ads on another website. Think Booking.com….

Aiden pointed out that this data could also be segmented so that you might remarket only to those who purchased from you in the past versus those who bounced away (for example).

Note: The data used for remarketing is built from users who have accepted cookies ( so will not include those who have not), thus you have permission to target them with ads. 

He suggested the building of a customer profile (something I have found very useful in the past for user centered design) where you literally make a persona of your customer giving it a name, sex, job, age, pet, hobbies etc. This can help you build a bigger picture around what your customers might want or be interested in and thereby open up ideas on ways to reach them. He also noted how important it is that every business knows the lifetime value of the customer.

YouTube Advertising

Did you know that YouTube Ads cost as little as .03 cent and you only pay if a viewer watches the whole advert!

So if your ad is 30 seconds long ( this incidentally is the best max time) and a user leaves at 28 seconds you don’t pay a thing. A neat little trick a client had done is create a video of 30 seconds duration with an advert taking up 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of nothing… thus the viewer would watch the first 20 seconds ( ie his whole ad) and get bored of the emptiness, leaving before the 30 seconds was up. Naughty.. but smart. I imagine Google will find a way to discourage this but for now…

To Summarise:

• Identify and Segment Potential Customers
• Remarket them with enticing offers / discounts etc
• Check out YouTube ads – 5 secs before can close them, 30 seconds max time is best, pay only if viewer watches full advert/time.
• Know the lifetime value of your customer!

Roz Kelly, Beechdale Garden Centre.

2015 European Young e-Shoppers Study

In 2015, DPDgroup, in conjunction with InProcess ( www.inprocess-group.com), conducted a detailed study into the habits of young European e-shoppers. Delivery being a key component of the online shopping journey, DPD is conscious of the evolution and diversity of the online shoppers’ expectations. In order to harness information about the consumers’ wants and needs, we built a study which allowed us to create a comprehensive panorama of the different usages, attitudes and expectations regarding online shopping from 40 participants, between 18-25 years, from the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Spain.

The project’s aim was to gain a good understanding of the needs and motivations of e-shoppers throughout the purchasing journey. From DPD’s perspective, this information would help us to improve the future delivery experience, alleviating pain points and allow us to engage more closely with both our customers and their customers.

The study entailed ethnographic observations with 40 participants. Ethnography is a qualitative research method that involves spending several hours with a participant to observe in-depth, their real life circumstances and habits. We spent 3 hours with each participant in their homes or in a place of meaning to them (shared living space, school, etc.). Being able to observe participants in their own environments allowed us to observe what they would really do, and not just what they say they would do. Participants were also given a video camera to record any shopping related moments over the course of a week following the study. This video diary allowed us to see certain moments of the full shopping journey – the difficulties involved in tracking down a package, the joy of receiving a product, or the hassle of making returns – that we were not able to observe first hand during the initial observation.

The in-depth nature of the study allowed us to fully understand the process from beginning to end, and to capture the emotions of the participant as they went through a shopping process. The open observations also allowed the study to explore a wide range of behaviours and to be surprised by what was revealed in the field, rather than remaining restricted by existing hypotheses or strict questionnaires.

Participants were recruited to ensure a diversity of living situations: at home with parents, in apartments with roommates, students, professionals etc. They were chosen to be representative of a generation for whom online shopping is part of their day-to-day experience and normal routine. The participants were active on social media and used multiple devices and channels to communicate.

All of them had strong similarities regarding why they shop online:

A – Convenience

B – Choice

C – Competitive pricing

However, their online shopping behaviour was coloured by cultural and economic influences reflective of where they were located.

The consumer’s shopping journey map was a key reference point for the study. This assisted us in assessing what were the key common features and key differentiators between the experiences in each country. This information facilitated the identification of areas for improvement.

 

Mapping the consumer’s shopping journey:

Initial insights into Online shopping culture and experience by country:

UK – The culture of “high-street” shopping is strong. Shopping is seen as part of the daily routine, and this includes online. Social interaction is an important aspect. There was earlier adoption of mobile devices with better mobile experience of shopping applications.

Spain- Difficult economic situation has impacted young people’s spending power and habits. Young people are living longer at home; therefore, they require privacy around what they are purchasing and the delivery leg.

Germany- A shopping culture influenced by the invention of the “discount retailer” (e.g. Lidl) leading to a strong desire to find the best deal.Very independent shopping style. Returns solution is a key component.

Some key insights and opportunities: This generation who are intent on finding good deals, this makes the shopping experience more exciting.

• Making the right deal is like having won something.
• The savvy shopper is armed with tools to look for the best price – comparison websites are widely used in France, Spain and Germany.
• Frustration at “hidden fees” – need information re. delivery charges upfront and clearly displayed.

A “one Size” fits all experience doesn’t work:

• There’s a desire from the respondent to have an experience that’s customisable to them.
• Requirement for tools to help the user wade through choices available – e.g. filters, intelligent suggestions and other navigational tools. Clear visuals adapted to all channels e.g. desktop, tablet, mobile.
• There needs to be choice where it matters – e.g. delivery options, payment methods – so that the user does not feel forced to use a particular option/method.
• The user needs that social connection (especially important for UK respondents) – allow connection to Social Media channels.

The user needs re-assurance:

• For some “high stake” products, shoppers still prefer offline channels e.g. clothing (for some), luxury products, fragile products or food.
• For many, a combination of online and offline is used – check pricing online, check quality in-store, purchase online.
• Reviews and forums are widely used to seek confirmation re. security and credibility of unknown sites (e.g. Trustpilot).
• Sharing with and seeking feedback from friends on social media – a friend’s review is deemed to be far more trustworthy than a salesperson’s.
• Payment – generally Paypal viewed as trustworthy. Credit card payment deemed easy but there is concern re. whether security could be compromised. In Poland, payment on delivery is deemed the most secure and standard practice.

Delayed satisfaction after the click:

• Shoppers who are invested throughout the browsing steps feel let down after the “Click to Purchase” – feeling abandoned and a lack of control.
• This is where engagement is crucial – clear confirmation communication with details of the order status, concise details regarding the delivery process – who is delivering and when is delivery due.
• Allow the shopper to take control of the delivery arrangements.
• Does your carrier engage directly with the shopper providing them with the time window for delivery and flexible delivery to suit their busy lifestyle?
• “The ideal delivery experience is a product delivered to ME, when and where I want it!”

This is a flavour of the insights gained from the DPDgroup European Young E-shoppers study. Consumer feedback like this is invaluable and will help DPD to continue to tailor our delivery services in a way that will continue to improve the consumer’s online shopping journey. We hope that you, as e-tailers and retailers, will also find some useful feedback here.

For more details please contact me (E:  maeve.dwyer@dpd.ie) or go to directly to  http://www.dpd.com/home/insights/european_young_e_shoppers_study

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Making the right deal is like having won something

 

• The savvy shopper is armed with tools to look for the best price – comparison websites are widely used in France, Spain and Germany

 

• Frustration at “hidden fees” – need information re. delivery charges upfront and clearly displayed

Tony Kealys eCommerce Expansion!

My main focus as eCommerce manager is to ensure that our website delivers Return on Investment whilst giving a great customer experience to all of our customers.  To do this we monitor, analyse and report on all aspects of the website and use this as a guide to grow and improve.  On a daily basis there are a range of different tasks and issues that need to be addressed; this wouldn’t be possible without the solid and committed team I have surrounding me.

• As eCommerce manager I work alongside developers and our content editor to improve our site. We are always working at enhancing both sites and it is my role to ensure that everything is kept moving, from SEO and Social to promotional campaigns, online marketing even the design and layout of the site.
• Google shopping plays a prominent role in my role as eCommerce manager. Keeping constant watch on our Merchant feeds.  Using Google AdWords to monitor all of the campaigns we have running, altering budgets, measuring clicks and adding new feeds and products to drive sales and increase turnover.
• Our customers are always our number one priority. It is my job to ensure that our dispatch team are always up to date on completing customer orders and to manage the customer service. Making sure that a strict KPI is kept and any issues dealt with promptly. KPI’s are updated daily and I check them weekly and spot check orders to ensure everything is running smoothly.
• Keeping the communication between our website, stores and our suppliers is important. Dealing with suppliers and store managers to create promotions to drive sales both online and in store is a daily matter.
• Site maintenance is a constant part of the role. Working closely with our content editor to make sure our customers receive the information they need and ensuring all of our products are up to date, marked out of stock and new stock marked in. I also ensure that our content and social strategies are being implemented.
• It is my job to produce a weekly and yearly P&L for the online channel to measure spend and use this to analyse how we can grow going forward.

 

As eCommerce manager I am responsible for developing, driving and implementing our brands e commerce strategy to maximise sales and deliver excellent brand experience. I manage all of our web team to get the best out of all of our staff so we can give the best experience to our customers.

We set up our Irish website 12 years ago with just one person covering all aspects of the site from dispatch to content.  We introduced a UK site in 2010 when we realised the potential in the UK market. In the past 3 years our team has more than doubled with 7 full time members of staff. Growing our brand online in both the UK and Irish markets has always been high on our agenda.  In the past year we have invested in 2 new websites which has helped us evolve.  Google shopping has also been a great help for us in breaking into the UK market. Our turnover on our UK site has increased greatly in the past 2 years.  In 2014 we had an increase on the previous year of 806.75% and in 2015 we also had a significant increase on the previous year of 351.99%. And to date we have seen an increase of 200%. On our Irish site we also saw an increase of 150% over the past 2 years.

Our Online sales have made a net profit for the first time in 2015.We have put strategies and targets in place to help us to keep evolving and growing the business online, this keeps us on track and helps motivate our team.

Martina Duff- eCommerce Manager (Tony Kealys)

How REI Membership Has Helped J Barter Travel

Throughout J Barter Travel’s 150 years of service, we’ve always strived for excellence in both a consumer facing fashion, as well as in what our consumers don’t see; simply put, excellence is what we’re known for, and what we always try to maintain and improve. With that in mind, we’ve always tried to ensure that whoever we partner with always has excellence at the heart of their organisation, as well as some of our other core values.

That’s where Retail Excellence Ireland came in; REI and J Barter Travel share some of the same common core principles, but REI’s drive for improving themselves and their partners couldn’t have been better for us, and other retail companies that REI has partnered with.

Not only has our REI membership helped us improve how with deal with customers, as excellent as we were before our membership, it has also helped us grow behind the scenes as a business.  Over the past several years, we’ve won several different prestigious business awards, such as the ITTN Travel Agency of the Year 2015, the Cork Business Association Award Q3 2015, the Cork Business of the Year Award 2015 and the Cork Digital Marketing Award2014: Best Digital Marketing by an SME.

In partnering with REI, we have been given the digital tools needed, and training provided to our staff, let us known any change in our industry or in the market, given us reports from business in Cork and market reports from Ireland as there isn’t any other source with statistics of the Irish market. They are doing a great job collecting data from their members and reported useful and important information to us and other members.

It’s the drive, information, and incredible support from Retail Excellence Ireland that has helped J Barter Travel, and our website Travelnet.ie, push ourselves to constantly improve as a business in order to deliver the best offers and service to our customers that we can. REI helps us add fuel to our fire by publishing yearly reports focusing on the Irish retail market, allowing us to realize where our efforts may be falling short, thus enabling us to constantly improve ourselves as a business.

REI has also enabled J Barter Travel, and Travelnet.ie, to further add to the fact that our company may be local, but our business is international. Membership in REI also gives J Barter Travel, as well as other retail groups partnered with REI, a collective voice when it comes to governmental organisations, allowing us to be heard when it comes to any legislation that may affect us as a business.

Throughout this, J Barter Travel has also been able to bridge the gap between traditional, in-store travel agents and our website, Travelnet.ie. Not only do we actively encourage our customers to book online, but our travel agents also consult with potential customers through social media in order to best assess their needs, result in more customers being drawn to Travelnet.ie in order to book their holidays. Over the past few years, this progression from traditional, in-store booking and online booking has been seamless, with more and more people opting to book online instead of booking in person, although that’s not to say that a more traditional approach is necessarily going away; after all, there’ll always be people who’d rather have a more personal touch, which J Barter Travel is always happy to deliver.

Luke Luby, J Barter Travel

How Carroll’s Irish Gifts reduced their energy usage by 76%

In 2014 Energia launched “Cash for Kilowatts” – a new funding scheme to support energy efficiency projects for businesses.  This programme allows Energia to contribute up to 30% towards the overall costs of an energy upgrade; with the resulting energy savings covering the balance of the cost.  Businesses can use the funding to kick start projects they might otherwise not have been able to afford.

Carroll’s Irish Gifts began the process of upgrading the lighting in two of their 13 stores in September.  Lighting is a key element in the display and presentation of goods in any retail outlet.  It also forms a considerable chunk of any store’s annual electricity bill.

The first step was for Energia to conduct an energy audit of some of Carroll’s outlets.  We identified significant savings that could be made by modernising the lighting systems.  The project consisted of changing a variety of metal halide lighting from low bay fittings, recessed downlights, spotlights and fluorescents to more energy efficient Lightstar 205 fittings provided by Fergal Power & Wave Guide Lighting.

In total, 61 existing fittings were replaced with 22 energy efficient fittings as part of the complete lighting design overhaul.

Carroll’s has seen considerable results from the project.  The company has reduced its annual electricity use for lighting by 76% as a result of the changes. This means that they’ve shrunk their carbon footprint by 18 tonnes of CO2 each year, generating cost savings of almost €5,800.

Energia’s “Cash for Kilowatts” scheme is open to any company spending more than €5,000 on an energy efficiency project and allows grant funding of up to 30% of the project value. The initiative is open to all businesses, whether or not they are customers of Energia.

As well as benefitting from the grants, businesses will also make very significant ongoing savings through the energy efficiency projects. For example:

• Lighting: LED and high efficiency lighting can reduce your lighting costs by up to 75%
• Heating: a new boiler or heating controls can save over 25% of your annual fuel costs
• Refrigeration: new systems can reduce your costs by up to 30%

Lorcan O’Connor of Carroll’s Irish Gifts believes that this type of project is worthwhile for any Irish retailer.  Here’s what he has to say.

At Energia we’re delighted to be able to offer our ‘Cash for Kilowatts’ initiative to promote energy efficiency upgrades among Irish businesses.  Since commencing the scheme in 2014, we have had over 1000 businesses contact us with nearly 500 businesses undertaking a project.  This has resulted in annual savings for these businesses in the region of €8m per annum.

Through the scheme we’re delighted to be supporting the national upgrade programme ‘Better Energy’ and the National Climate Change Strategy. Businesses can find out more on www.energia.ie/funding or by emailing energyservices@energia.ie.”

Amy O’Shaughnessy, Energia

Eircode and the retail sector

It has been six months since Eircode, Ireland’s postcode system, was launched. In that time there has been much discussion, interest and debate about the code. The introduction of a postcode will have a very real impact on the retail sector and, in time, should allow retailers to realise a number of key benefits to their business. In an era where retailers are looking more and more at the online space, having a tool that allows customers to quickly enter an address will improve the user experience, while the retailer benefits by ensuring that the risk of fraudulent addressing is minimised and ensures that their data is clean and accurate. Rapid capture of address information will help online purchases, home delivery and click and collect services.

An Eircode can be used to accurately locate the position of any address in the country, making deliveries easier, faster and cheaper.

The use of Eircode in a home delivery or courier service realise real gains for retailers in terms of overheads and speed of delivery. This in particular will be essential to retailers who service rural areas. Prior to the launch of Eircode, some 600,000 addresses – or 35% of the national total – were not unique. That is to say that multiple addresses in the same location were identical.

Intelligent address capture will speed up the online purchasing process and give retailers clean, accurate and consistent address data.

For a delivery service this causes a real headache and normally requires multiple phone calls to the customer to identify the delivery address, additional time and money spent on the delivery if not requiring multiple trips for one delivery. By capturing the Eircode (which comes with associated coordinates pointing directly to that address), this problem can be solved. Living in a data-rich age, the prospect of Eircode tagging your customer data (whether it’s from a special offer, loyalty card, competition or marketing campaign) will allow for greater analytical insight into your customer base. Many retailers are already using Eircoded addresses to append other demographic data such as average neighbourhood income, housing type, affluence and age profile.

Every residential and commercial address in the country has its own unique Eircode, invaluable for data analysis.

This information rich data can then be implanted in sales and marketing functions, allowing for more focused campaigns at a more targeted audience, helping to reduce spend and increase success rates as a result. With the economic recovery and improved growth, it may also be time for you to think again about expanding your existing network. Using Eircode and your customer data, you can undergo a scientific site selection survey to target locations that offer a similar demographic profile to existing stores and which could indicate potential turnover of a new branch, based of competitor data and other factors.

While the launch of the Eircode project has been very much a slow burner, the upside to its success in the retail sector will be significant. Based on the number of customers and inquiries we have had at Autoaddress, we are very confident that 2016 will see Eircode make a big impact on the business of early adopters and that public uptake will continue to grow.

Ronan O’ Connor, Gamma Ltd

New Dispute Resolution Rules for Online Traders

What’s new?
On 15 February 2016 new rules come into force, which affect the sale online of goods and
services between retailers and customers in the EU. A European Online Dispute Resolution (“ODR”) Platform has been put in place by the European Commission. Click here to read more. Its purpose is to give EU traders and consumers a simpler, faster, cheaper and more efficient way to settle disputes. Consumers who are unhappy with the quality of the goods or services they purchase online will be able to submit their dispute to an alternative dispute resolution procedure through the ODR Platform.

What do you need to do?
From 15 February 2016 you will need to include a link to the ODR Platform and to your email address on your website. It doesn’t matter if you don’t currently trade with foreign consumers. The European Commission wants to encourage use of the ODR Platform in domestic disputes too.
Therefore you will also need to amend your website terms and conditions to reflect this
change. You can use wording similar to this: “If you are unhappy with the products or services you have received from us please email us at [problems@trader.com]. You can also submit your complaint to an online dispute resolution process operated by the European Commission by clicking on this link “.

What happens if we don’t comply with the new rules?
Failure to comply with your obligations may result in fines or imprisonment under new offences set out in related amendments to the Consumer Protection Act 2007.

While you’re at it!
When amending your website terms and conditions to take account of ODR, why not
check them also for other mandatory requirements such as, for example, the correct
display of corporate information.

Further Information
For more information on this topic or any other queries in respect of online trading, please
contact your usual Maples and Calder contact or:
Victor Timon
Head of Commercial Technology Group
+353 1 619 2071
victor.timon@maplesandcalder.com

February 2016
© Maples and Calder
This update is intended to provide only general information for the clients and professional contacts of Maples and Calder. It does not purport to be comprehensive or to render legal advice.

 

Retail Management Development Programme 2016

Designed for the development of Retail Managers, Supervisors and Team Members with High Potential!

Over the years, we’ve recognised that many managers just don’t have the time to commit to a two year programme or to spending evenings at home completing assignments – their daily responsibilities just don’t allow them that luxury. So, four years ago, we sat down here in the REI offices and created what has now become one of our most successful annual events – The Retail Management Development Programme. It is delivered by real retailers to real retailers.

‘I really enjoyed the programme; very informative, great direction given. Brilliant speakers – inspiring and positive. I feel re-focused on my teams’ development and continued success for myself and our store’

The programme is an exciting and intensive series of four one day workshops delivered over an eleven week period at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Blanchardstown, Dublin concluding with a fifth day at the anual REI Retail Retreat at Mount Wolseley Hotel Carlow on 11^th May 2016.  We have developed this course for retail managers, supervisors and team members with high potential who want to hit the ground running every morning and raise the performance of both their store, their teams and themselves to ‘the next level’ with the confidence of knowing that they are doing it right.  It offers days filled with new information and opportunities to meet people at the same level, with the same daily problems and the solutions to those problems. No matter what sector you are in, retail is retail and everyone has the same bridges to cross.

‘Excellent learning – not just from the speakers but also the other managers/owners who attended. Great support to realise that some of the problems I face are also faced daily by others’
The programme is innovative, engaging and the content is designed to challenge conventional thinking. Participants will strengthen their management skills in a broad range of topics, including managing people, finance, time management and will learn how to plan effectively. The measuring (and understanding) of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will no longer be an on-going worry after hearing David Fitzsimons CEO REI explain how to set them and how to measure them.  An added bonus is that course participants will enjoy a case study visit/presentation at TileStyle – REI National Store of the Year 2016 and also attend the REI Retail Retreat where they will have the opportunity to hear presentations and gain insights from the very best people in Irish and global retail. Alf Dunbar will deliver his world famous You Are The Difference Customer Service Programme which delegates can bring back to store to train their team members on how to stand out from the competition through the delivery of supreme customer service techniques.

What 2015 participants said about the programme –

‘I can’t recommend the course highly enough. It’s given me great motivation and insights. It’s been like a rebirth!’

 ‘It has exceeded my expectations and I have a bounty of new skills and ideas which I began putting into practice from Day1’

‘Great handouts, great speakers – very knowledgeable and motivating. Very practical advice – very inspiring. I am delighted to have participated’

‘ Not every session was fully relevant to the role I hold currently yet I have taken information from every one of them which will help to take me to where I want to be’

‘Really good, enjoyed every session. Have lots of solid ideas to work on – great to get out of the daily grind and meet other managers, learn and just have time to think and plan’

Helen O’ Dowd, REI