A new retail initiative being launched today will enable traders in rural towns to sell their goods together on a single website.
The eStreet website provides a digital platform for traders in a certain area to advertise their products online, allowing a wider audience of customers to buy items such as food, clothing and furnishings from multiple local shops in one session.
The project was launched in Skibbereen on Friday by the Ludgate Hub, a local enterprise named after computing pioneer Percy Ludgate which provides high-speed broadband connectivity for rural businesses.
Initially comprising 11 retailers from the Skibbereen area, eStreet.ie is currently in the first phase of what its backers hope will be a nationwide rollout.
“EStreet.ie is paving the digital path for other towns and areas to follow a collaborative e-commerce model. It is set to become Ireland’s first fully inclusive e-commerce community portal,” said eStreet manager Gillean Guy.
“It is the future of shopping for all rural areas and towns and the key to sustainability,” she added.
Friday's launch heard from British Labour peer and celebrated film producer Lord David Puttnam, who is also Ireland's first designated 'Digital Champion'.
“The Ludgate Hub is ideally positioned to help the community it serves reinvent itself for the digital age, by opening up world markets to our local businesses and providing fresh opportunities for jobs and investment,” he said.
Regional traders suffered a particularly hard knock during the recent recession and continue to lag far behind urban centres, particularly Dublin, although there are signs that a nationwide recovery is bedding in more strongly in rural areas.
The stated aim of eStreet is to help combat rural disadvantage and economic decline via “a multi-pronged digital strategy”.
Having a presence on eStreet.ie can reduce start-up costs of up to €4,000 for an individual website to below €1,000 for retailers, according to its founders.
The new initiative was brought about as part of a partnership between the Ludgate Hub and An Post, the Department of Communications, West Cork Local Enterprise Office and Granite Digital.
"When I was a child, Skibbereen was like a metropolis to me. It didn't seem like a small town at all. Now many years later, Skibbereen is still bigger than it seems with the launch of Ludgate's eStreet connecting it to the global marketplace," said TV3 presenter Triona McCarthy, who is from the town.
“Places change and evolve and must move with the times and I couldn’t be more proud of how this small town thinks big, modernises, and renews all the while preserving what makes it so special, the people,” she added.
