Ecommerce site recommendations?

mrawkward

They don't care about platform or content so should not be a problem. Website +paid invoice = grant

Dades

tacofries wrote: »

I was offered a grant by LEO in order develop a website.

I'm curious - is that grant actually a loan? I had dealings with the LEO before and it turned out the money they were offering was a loan that required immediate repayments once drawn down.

tacofries

Unfortunately they are saying a demo video (which is proven to drastically increase online sales) and photos don't count. No arguing- with them over it either, its just the way it is!

Dades, it is a grant. I pay up front then have 50% of the costs refunded to me up to a mximum of €2,000.

mrawkward

You appear to be saying that they will only grant aid a website that has no photos or videos....ah here!

tacofries

mrawkward wrote: »

You appear to be saying that they will only grant aid a website that has no photos or videos....ah here!

No, the website assistance grant will aid the development of any website, however any promotional elements of the website such as videos or photos are not eligible expenses. I have double checked my emails to make sure what I am saying is correct and unfortunately it is....it does seem a bit strange!

mrawkward

tacofries wrote: »

No, the website assistance grant will aid the development of any website, however any promotional elements of the website such as videos or photos are not eligible expenses. I have double checked my emails to make sure what I am saying is correct and unfortunately it is....it does seem a bit strange!

So it is just a simple billing verbiage issue.....time to get smart!

Dades

tacofries wrote: »

Dades, it is a grant. I pay up front then have 50% of the costs refunded to me up to a mximum of €2,000.

Gotcha.

There is another similar "voucher" available for website/business promotion that can be used on AdWords, video creation etc. I attended a seminar to qualify for it.
https://www.localenterprise.ie/Discover-Business-Supports/Trading-Online-Voucher-Scheme-/

campo

Graham wrote: »

I'm currently building a website for the Mrs. Had initially planned on using WP/Woo but it just didn't offer the flexibility we needed around configurable products. E.g. Product A in material B, size C, colour D type E.

We're using a hosting provider that specialises in Magento so even the basic shared hosting package has the dev site loading quickly.

You can do all this with WP & Woo , you use the variations tab, I use it myself for colour, storage, accessories etc

Graham

campo wrote: »

You can do all this with WP & Woo , you use the variations tab, I use it myself for colour, storage, accessories etc

As was suggested by another poster previously.

What clinched Magento in the end was its ability to automatically create the product catalogue based on the pre-defined options we were looking at. That was a massive win for us, reducing the time to create the 14000+ simple product variants into a matter of days rather than weeks. That and I made a judgment call that although technically(theoretically) Woo could support that number of products, it's not really what it was designed for and would have left little scope for expansion.

I have no doubt Woo could have done it, I also have no doubt it would have been the wrong decision for us for several reasons some of which I mentioned.

It's not a decision that was made lightly, it was arrived at after much consideration, refining of the requirements and several POC stores. Even with the leaning curve involved in Magento compared to our existing knowledge of Woo, Magento won out.

That's not to say Magento is the right solution for every project, it absolutely isn't. I'd go as far as to say it's almost certainly not the right solution for anyone who has a requirements/specifiation that consists of "we need an e-commerce solution".

Trojan

tacofries wrote: »

I was offered a grant by LEO in order develop a website.
[..]
Originally the aim was to use the grant to make a demo video for the website as well as take a few product photos, but I have since being told that the grant is purely for website development costs and not its actual design/promo materials.

If this is the Trading Online Voucher Scheme (TOVS) - sometimes referred to as Online Trading Voucher Scheme - then you can use the grant towards videography, photography and graphic design work if they are necessary to the upgrade of an e-commerce or lead generation website, i.e. one that facilitates your trading online.

The grant is a maximum of €2500 in matching funds (to get that you'd need to spend €5000 plus VAT) and it can be used for a range of different spends. In fact, the flexibility of use is the main selling point of the voucher. It can be used for design, development, software, plugins, training, app development, consultancy, and even advertising spend (which is matched at 30%).

Most of the LEOs around the country are actively looking for businesses to apply for this, and it's coming from a central fund, not from their own funds. I can tell you for certain that every business that has both been eligible and has correctly filled out the application has been awarded the TOVS grant in my local LEO.

Aside: for businesses that don't qualify for the TOVS grant, most LEOs have a small website grant that comes directly out of their own funds and is usually between €300 and €600. It's usually completely discretionary and there's no guarantee it'll be available or what requirements they might put in place for it.

Source: I deliver TOVS seminars to potential applicants and evaluate TOVS applications as an external consultant to one of the LEOs.

tacofries

Trojan wrote: »

If this is the Trading Online Voucher Scheme (TOVS) - sometimes referred to as Online Trading Voucher Scheme - then you can use the grant towards videography, photography and graphic design work if they are necessary to the upgrade of an e-commerce or lead generation website, i.e. one that facilitates your trading online.

The grant is a maximum of €2500 in matching funds (to get that you'd need to spend €5000 plus VAT) and it can be used for a range of different spends. In fact, the flexibility of use is the main selling point of the voucher. It can be used for design, development, software, plugins, training, app development, consultancy, and even advertising spend (which is matched at 30%).

Most of the LEOs around the country are actively looking for businesses to apply for this, and it's coming from a central fund, not from their own funds. I can tell you for certain that every business that has both been eligible and has correctly filled out the application has been awarded the TOVS grant in my local LEO.

Aside: for businesses that don't qualify for the TOVS grant, most LEOs have a small website grant that comes directly out of their own funds and is usually between €300 and €600. It's usually completely discretionary and there's no guarantee it'll be available or what requirements they might put in place for it.

Source: I deliver TOVS seminars to potential applicants and evaluate TOVS applications as an external consultant to one of the LEOs.

Hi Trojan,

Unfortunately it is not the trading online voucher as since we havent being trading for more than 12 months we don't qualify for it.

We have still beig offered up to €2500 but in reality the website development costs excl photos, videos etc, will only cost about €500. It would be an awful shame to let the other 2000 go to waste when in reality the video that is so vital to actually achieving sales will cost close to 2000...

Trojan

tacofries wrote: »

Unfortunately it is not the trading online voucher as since we havent being trading for more than 12 months we don't qualify for it.

We have still beig offered up to €2500 but in reality the website development costs excl photos, videos etc, will only cost about €500. It would be an awful shame to let the other 2000 go to waste when in reality the video that is so vital to actually achieving sales will cost close to 2000...

What I recommend for businesses in the first 12 months is:

1) Make sure the clock is ticking - the LEOs' preference for proof of trading is a CRO certificate, so register a business name for €20 if you haven't done that. They will accept other things but that's the least hassle.

2) Get the LEO website grant if you can. It's your first year of business so the odds of you pivoting or repositioning your business are very high, so not investing hugely in one direction is probably just fine at this stage.

3) If something is mission critical, it's important enough to invest your own capital, if not, hang on for the TOVS voucher next year.

When you do qualify for the TOVS, spend as much as possible to maximise the benefit you get from it. If you can afford it, make up the difference between your website spend and the €2,500 limit with AdWords and Facebook ad spend - you'll get 30% of that back.

HTH.