By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
June 13th, 1998

See Also   Egghead.com   Shopirish.com   eToys   CDNow   Dell

Overall
Creative Irish Gifts came into existence over ten years ago for a special purpose: to support the peacemaking efforts of the Irish Children's Fund (ICF), a non-profit organisation. More recently, they have extended their support to the Northern Ireland Children's Project, another peacemaking non-profit organisation.

These charitable aims severely limited the funds available for launching their Web site and as a result the whole site was constructed and marketed for its first year on a budget of around $8000.

However, this lack of cash has not prevented the creation of a top class Web store, which can compete with those put together by large, well-funded corporations. Indeed, SHOPIRISH.com achieves the same total score as the best store we have reviewed to date, CDNow.

Construction
There is absolutely nothing in the appearance or design of this store that reflects the limited budget that was available for its construction.

The pages are visually very attractive and load quickly, with no plug-ins being required. The main pages do make use of simple frames, but these are well implemented. There is no text-only or frame-less version available. Navigation is in general excellent, although it is not totally consistent throughout the site.

The site passes the important "three-clicks-to-an-order" test. We particularly liked the Quick Shop feature that allows customers that have access to a paper brochure to enter the item numbers they require into a simple form and move directly to the checkout.

There are two search features available. The main search engine allows searches by keyword, gift type or item number while the Gift Finder suggests items based on the shopper's input of a gift type and a price range.

Selling
The site uses some excellent techniques for attracting, retaining and converting visitors in to purchasers. As well as effectively employing fairly commonplace techniques such as price promotions and an e-mail newsletter, the site has a number of features that are worthy of special comment.

The first technique is directed at the impulse purchaser. This is accomplished by using SSI (Server Side Includes) together with A CGI script to randomly insert details of several selected products in to the main pages. These items change every time the page is loaded, thus exposing the shopper to significantly higher number of products than they would see by simply browsing through the store.

There are also a couple of methods used to encourage visitors to make repeat visits. Visitors can view a gallery of images of Ireland, taken by the shop owner himself. This is closely linked to a free post card feature that allows visitors to choose from nearly thirty Irish images and have them e-mailed to a friend.

Order processing
It is in this area that SHOPIRISH.com's limited funding becomes apparent. This is no great surprise, as the front-to-back-end management systems needed to provide top class order processing are still prohibitively expensive for most Web stores. That said, SHOPIRISH.com make the best use of the facilities available to them.

The store, which uses an effective shopping cart system, is configured to accept orders either online, through secure or unsecured servers, or offline. Offline orders can either be placed through a toll-free telephone number or customers can print off an order form at the checkout and fax or snail-mail it. Alternatively, customers can request that SHOPIRISH.com call them back for their credit card details.

Payment can be made by credit card with Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Discover all being accepted, and paper checks can be sent with snail-mail orders. Credit card transactions are not processed in real-time, but are instead batch-processed at the end of the day.

Although shipping costs are automatically calculated and added to the order for US and Canadian customers, international customers have their shipping costs notified separately to them by e-mail.

And there is no tie in from the Web store to legacy inventory systems. As a result, a customer is not informed that an item has been placed on backorder until they receive the rest of their goods. Customers can not track their orders online, and no e-mail notification is made when the goods ship.

Support
Although small companies can face some financial hurdles when setting up a Web store, one area where they should have the upper hand is in the personalised customer service they are able to provide.

SHOPIRISH.com make full use of his advantage by offering a high level of support to their customers by e-mail, toll-free telephone, fax or snail-mail.

As well as the product details and pictures available on the Web site, customers can also request a catalogue that contains full details of the products available.