Irish SMEs still slow to develop e-commerce sites

Irish SMEs are still lagging behind when it comes to making money from the web. Only 66% of Irish businesses had any kind of website in 2009, compared with 40% in 2000. Of those 66%, only 21% had e-commerce functionality on their site, a level that has grown by a marginal 3% since 2000. The latest figures form part of the IE Domain Registry’s (IEDR) ‘Domain Name Industry’ report. The key finding from the report is that Irish SMEs remain slow to realise the revenue potential of the Internet. Irish SMEs need to make greater use of Internet technologies to build fully featured e-commerce websites in order to achieve greater competitive advantage online.
David Curtin, chief executive of the IE Domain Registry, said, “After ten years IEDR felt it was an appropriate time in the Registry’s history to produce a comprehensive report on Ireland’s domain name industry. We’ve recently celebrated the registration of Ireland’s 150,000th .ie domain name. It is clear from the report that the next growth phase of the Internet in Ireland is dependent upon Ireland’s SME community and their adoption of Internet e-commerce technologies in building better, fully featured e-commerce websites. For this reason, IEDR is making a €100,000 e-commerce fund available to ten Irish SMEs next year. The fund will enable them to develop or upgrade fully functional e-commerce websites designed to establish and drive their business efforts online.”