Shopkeeping in various forms has been in Mariel Cotter's background for more than five generations, so it is not surprising that, returning to Co Limerick after some years working abroad, she decided to carry on the family tradition. While her ancestors were concerned with commerce, however, her business is e-commerce. Her shop is not on a high street, but on the electronic highway at www.honeyfitz.com. This site uses sophisticated technology to show off some of Ireland's best craftsmanship. What the site does not show is how this shopping venture all began - as a result of a one-day course on how to use the Internet. That was two years ago, and she now runs both a busy online shop and an Internet services business from her home.
Mariel Cotter says she had only one relevant skill when starting out on the Internet, a love of browsing. Almost from the beginning she began to use her newfound communication medium to go window-shopping. Initially she visited big international names, like www.macys.com, but gradually her curiosity led her to see what Irish people were selling on the Web. She soon discovered that several of these were Irish only in name - US shopping sites that traded under an Irish image - and almost all appeared to focus on a narrow tourist market.
This absence of a "real" Irish online craft shop - one that could meet the needs of people who, like herself when she lived abroad, wanted to buy quality Irish craft items - led her to think of setting up her own shop. The Leader Group in her area agreed to provide a small grant once she had a business plan. First of all she need training, however, and she says that living over a hundred miles from Dublin presented the first problem.
"Once I had decided on the idea for a shop I started looking where I could go to get it off the ground . . . I approached the support agencies, and while all thought the idea sounded great, none could help me, because it wasn't a usual enterprise," she says. "When I did find training courses for Web development all were in Dublin and even if I could have got to one their price tag would have put them out of reach. So, the only thing was to buy a computer and work on my own. It was only then that things started to happen".
On the day she bought her computer Mariel Cotter also recruited the salesman, whose name was Ian, and as it turned out worked as a part-time website designer. Some misconceptions were quickly and happily discarded. As she recalls, "websites being something technical, I thought it would mean you had to be good at maths and I'm not. However, once I saw Ian at work designing the first 10 pages, I noticed that it had nothing to do with complicated equations, and after a while was beginning to get an understanding of it."
Once the initial pages were set up the next stage was to fill them with products for sale. For this she needed no assistance. She visited her favourite shops and a few new ones with notebook and pen, writing down the names and addresses of artists and craftspeople. Then she started to travel the country asking if they would like to advertise their wares free on a website.
Visiting craftspeople in their workshops, she discovered that, while most were aware of the Internet and its potential for their business, few had either the time or the inclination to exploit it. When she offered to host pictures on their work of her site and buy from them as orders came in, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Since its launch in October last year the honeyfitz site has boomed. In December it was chosen by Yahoo as one of its Irish site to visit. By last summer it had registered over 200,000 hits.
Translating hits into sales is not a straightforward task, however. "Americans are so used to buying on the Internet, they can't understand when you haven't got an online transaction facility," she says. "And they don't wait around to listen to your excuse that Irish banks are not as Internet-friendly as their US counterparts. Also, government agencies talk a lot about `information age everything' and when you go about a course, they offer you word-processing skills."
To anyone who wants to follow her into e-commerce she says: "there are a number of things that are important to consider before starting a Web business. For instance, research is vital, both to see if there a market and how your competitors on the Web are exploiting that market. It is unbelievable how crowded the Internet is, so if your website is not unique and easy to use, people will not visit it, and those who do, will not return."
Despite, the lack of technology awareness still common in much of rural Ireland, Muriel Cotter is adamant that the Internet is the greatest thing that has happened to the place since the arrival of St Patrick. "In the country you're isolated, but the Internet has the power to do away with many of the negatives associated with isolation while maintaining virtually all of its positives."
jhennessy@ireland.com