For an informed Irish E-Commerce Sector

Amas, the Irish internet consultancy, released the latest State of the Net quarterly bulletin. There is a small article with information on Irish businesses online. Using data from the Central Statistics Office, it states that 87% of Irish businesses have broadband access. Of that percentage, only 23% of companies sell electronically while 49% purchase electronically.

The bulletin also contains some interesting findings on social media. The company recently conducted a survey on digital marketing with 400+ Irish marketers participating. The following highlight some of the findings:

• Social media is used primarily to build relationships (84%) and brand awareness (76%) as well as monitor what consumers are saying about companies (66%)
• The top online marketing format is still email campaigns (67%) followed by blogs / social networking (55%), search engine optimisation (52%), and banner advertising (49%)
• Marketing budgets are shifting towards online spending – over 1/3 of participants are spending over 21% of budgets on digital marketing
• Top 3 social media sites companies are using for communication: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

Amas has posted the full results of the survey on their SlideShare channel, to view click here.

Source: 2011 Irish Online Marketing Sentiment Survey. Marketing Institute of Ireland / Amas

We have made some changes to the questions regarding industries and specialisations in which companies compete. We have also added one or two questions on perceptions of market size. The updated version has been attached, please take a moment to review the changes.

Let us know what you think of the survey content! We welcome feedback on how you feel about the type of information we will be requesting – What do you think will be useful? Is there anything you are not interested in knowing? What other statistics would you like to have?

Comment through the blog, email us at info@irishecommercesurvey.com, or tweet us @irishecommerce.

Irish E-commerce Survey Questions Draft 2

This is a ‘help me help you’ situation. While we understand there may be some hesitance to release certain statistics pertaining to company business, the outcome for participating companies is highly relevant e-commerce information. The more companies that participate, the more reliable the data collected. As mentioned before, there is currently a lack of Irish e-commerce information; this survey could begin to solve that problem.

Should a company submit a valid e-mail address at the completion of the survey, we will provide a personalized report with company statistics, industry sector statistics, and overall Irish statistics. Essentially, this will be a report card of how your company is doing versus your industry and Irish e-commerce on the whole. However, if a company feels uncomfortable with providing an e-mail, a general report with Irish statistics and information broken down by industry will still be provided.

The benefits of having information for the Irish market are numerous. Part of the survey will include questions on the perceived market size of each industry allowing for an educated estimation of overall market size. There will also be hard data on conversion rates. For existing companies, this information will enhance benchmarking ability as well as illuminate which sectors might contain the most potential for expansion and diversification. By and large it will increase participants’ knowledge base, arming them to better compete in the Irish e-commerce sphere.

We know everyone is busy with days full of meetings and deadlines, but we truly feel the results of this survey will be extremely beneficial to all companies competing in the Irish e-commerce sphere. Upon the launch of the survey we hope each company will spare a few minutes to complete the survey!

Next up…example questions for the survey.

How many Google searches have to be run to find current statistics relating to the status of Ireland’s e-commerce sector? Too many. Few results turn up that are relevant to the specific statistics that would be helpful to existing or emerging companies. By the time one finds a minimum number of potentially useful data, such as the total revenue from the online channel or upcoming trends, it is easy to forget why one started the search in the first place. Not to mention that many of the statistics are rarely on a country basis much less broken down by sector. The most recent State of the Net quarterly issue states that “there is a scarcity of robust e-commerce data in this market.” Agreed.

As more and more consumers are turning to the internet to research products and make purchases, e-commerce is becoming an increasingly important aspect of conducting business. The Winter 2010 State of the Net bulletin explains that “Irish businesses are losing out to overseas e-commerce providers which have been aggressively targeting Irish consumers.” As of November 2010, of the 66% of Irish businesses that had websites, only 21% had e-commerce capability, according to the .ie Domain Registry.

If Irish companies hope to compete, knowledge of important statistics related specifically to the state of Irish e-commerce and the different sectors within it would be incredibly useful. This is where our survey comes into play. Because the market is changing rapidly, the goal of the survey will be to keep Irish e-commerce statistics current and relevant while also simplifying the data search.

The launched survey will be aimed at companies competing in Irish e-commerce. Among the data gathered will be information regarding turnover, conversion rates, traffic, and total orders. The results of the survey will allow for better benchmarking for those already competing in the Irish e-commerce sphere. Wouldn’t it be useful to know in what areas your company needs to work at to improve results? New ventures will also benefit through having a greater understanding of realistic expectations and projections. The more information available, the better prepared companies will be to compete. Lastly, as the hope is to complete the survey annually from this point forward, it will provide an understanding of how the state of Ireland’s e-commerce is changing through the years.

Stay tuned for more information on the survey and the types of reports we intend to make available to participating companies…