€52 million leaving the country ever year from Offaly online shoppers
Offaly consumers are spending more than €52 million online ever year on purchases from companies outside Ireland. People from Offaly often buy goods online that appear to be from Irish retailers but instead are large and internet savvy international online retailers. Moreover these purchases are available from true Offaly and Irish based retailers but are losing out to international retailers who are dominating this space. This is negatively affecting Irish retail business and job growth in the sector and will have a particularly negative impact on potential sales for retailers in Offaly in the run up to Christmas and beyond.
43% of Irish consumers purchased online last year, and 2.6 million Irish people regularly shop online. €4.1bn was spent on online shopping in Ireland in 2012, up from €2.96bn the previous year – but 75% of these purchases went through companies outside Ireland. In other words, €98 per second is lost from the Irish economy according to EuroStat. The consequence of this means fewer jobs and less business for Irish companies including businesses in Offaly. The solution to this problem is a national symbol for Irish owned and operated ecommerce sites called eMark, giving consumers the opportunity to support Irish jobs and business by supporting Irish owned and operated businesses online. With the increase in the popularity of online shopping in the run up to Christmas, eMark will now provide Offaly shoppers the tools to make informed decisions on where they choose to shop online. Therefore Offaly online consumers may be more likely to choose Irish owned and Irish based companies in order to support the local economy.
In response to the growing problem within the Irish ecommerce industry where millions of euro is leaving the country online every single day iCompany identified and developed the opportunity for the eMark and now industry members have come together to further develop and launch the eMark.
The eMark will enable consumers to identify approved Irish online businesses before making purchasing decisions. This will result in significant amounts of money remaining in the Irish economy, as well as the increase in jobs and jobs secured within the industry.
The online retail market is set to grow to €21 billion by 2017 and therefore with the phenomenal increase in online shopping by Irish consumers, there has never been a more crucial time for Irish retailers to act and win back market share from international online retailers that are dominating this space.
According to Michael McCormack of eMark ‘with a strong demand having re-emerged in recent years by the Irish public to buy Irish, this bodes well for the online industry and the eMark is here to provide the guarantee of Irish ownership to online consumers. Our goal is to make sure consumers in Offaly are informed about what companies are Irish and therefore this should lead to more people likely to choose those companies and ultimately support Irish businesses and jobs.’
