Government Grants, Market Research, Special Offers

Trading Online Voucher Scheme

April 4, 2017

You may be eligible for a grant which will match up to €2500 or 50% of the costs of your online project
Introduction


Aims:
    • assist small businesses engage in e-Commerce sales.
    • where possible help small businesses engage in export sales on-line.
    • The grant will match up to €2500 or 50% of the costs of the project (excluding VAT).


Reasons:
    • Only 23% of small Irish businesses are engaged in any meaningful way in e-Commerce sales, the aims are to improve this statistic.
    • 70% of on-line sales in Ireland are made in overseas markets.  The aim is to help Irish businesses enter the eCommerce market and offer their services on-line.
Criteria:
The business in question must:

    • have a limited Online Trading presence
    • have less than 10 employees
    • have a turnover less than €2 million
    • be registered and trading for at least 12 months
    • be a profit oriented business.
    • be capable of attaining economic viability.
    • demonstrate a commercial market for their proposed service or product.
    • have adequate overall finance available to the project
    • have the necessary management and technical skills to make the business a success
    • have capacity for growth and new job creation
    • have potential for export, please outline in your application
    • be a full time commercial businesses
    • NOT be Enterprise Ireland clients and not receiving Enterprise Ireland funding

Ineligible Projects

    1. Retail outlets
    2. Professional service
    3. Consultancies
    4. businesses in a heavily populated sector – for example by obtaining this grant would put other businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
    5. Builders, Hairdressers, Cafes, Pubs, Hotels, General Printers, Construction, Trades etc.
    6. Conferences and Seminars
    7. Projects which are contrary to public policy.
    8. Duplication of support for projects which would be eligible for assistance from other State Agencies of EU funded Operational Programmes.
    9. Existing Firms which already have an established relationship with Enterprise Ireland or IDA. Please do not apply to the Enterprise Board if you have an existing application for the same project under consideration by Enterprise Ireland.
    10. Projects involving primary agricultural production.
    11. Projects with employees in excess of 10 people.
    12. Mobile assets, i.e. cars, motor vans, laptops, mobile machinery etc.
    13. Projects deemed to be capable of proceeding in any event without Board assistance ie deadweight.
    14. Projects essentially comprising importation and distribution.
    15. Own labour is not an eligible expense;
Process to Apply for the Grant

The application process for the Vouchers will be a competitive process whereby the best applications will be accepted. The following steps are needed to apply for the grant.

Step 1: Find your local Enterprise Office

Use this useful online service to locate your local Enterprise office.

 

Step 2: Register and attend Seminar
Those wishing to avail of a voucher, must attend an obligatory Information seminar.  At each seminar attendees will be informed of the purpose of the scheme and how best to use and get value from the application of the voucher.


If the seminar is Booked out, it is still possible to apply for the grant and skip this step, once the application is professional and containing a strong case why you should be accepted.


Step 3: Submit application to the grant:
You must then complete an application form which must be accompanied with three quotations for the development of the website and the reasons provided to support the chosen supplier, prior to commencement of site development and any payments made.


If your application is successful then the development of the work can commence.


Step 4: Evaluation Process

An evaluation committee consisting of a group of up to 4 people will assess the applications and make recommendations for approval

 

A competitive process will be put in place to assist with selection process. Selection of successful applicant will be based on the following criteria:

    1. Eligibility for scheme

    2. Value added potential
    3. Export potential
    4. Job creation potential
    5. Financial Sustainability

Record decisions and report to the Local Enterprise Office approvals committee


Step 5: Acceptance


If you are accepted to avail of the grant:
Letter of offer with Voucher to be sent out to successful applicant
The Letter of offer needs to be signed, accepted and returned


Step 6: Work Commences

Client has three months to complete the work as per their application

Step 7: Payment of Grant


The grant will be paid to you once the following conditions are met:
The proposed project is inspected;
Original invoices are submitted at time of claim;


Proof of payment is provided, which must be in the form of an original bank statement or an on-line statement that has been stamped by the bank;


The home page of the website acknowledges the source of funding and accredited in a prominent position. This shall include the European Union logo and your Local Enterprise Office logo.


The grant must be drawn and fully paid before the completion date as detailed in the Letter of Offer.


Therefor you pay the supplier in full for the work, and then you receive the funding from the Local Enterprise Office.


All applications are subject to evaluation and priority will be given to applicants who do not currently have a web presence.


Using the Voucher / Grant

What the vouchers can be used for:

  1. IT consultation.
  2. Development or upgrade of an e-commerce website.
  3. Implementing Online payments or booking systems.
  4. Purchase of Internet related software.
  5. Purchase of on-line advertising.
  6. Implementing a digital marketing strategy i.e. Social media marketing.
  7. Consultation with ICT experts for early stage adopters of on-line strategy.
  8. Training skills specifically to establish and manage an on-line trading.

What the vouchers cannot be used for:

  1. Businesses that are not already trading
  2. Development of brochure websites
  3. Purchase of non-internet related software
  4. Anything other than on-line trading related activity
  5. Expenditure incurred prior to grant approval is ineligible.
  6. Will the project create employment or Export Goods?

If your project will generate employment and even export services / products without displacing any current jobs in your area, it is possible to apply for a larger grant. These grants tend to take more time and effort in order to obtain in compared to the on-line trading grant.

Tips

There needs to be an importance to the need to accept payments on-line, which you currently don’t have, and the benefits of this, even going as far to say it will save your company

Mention with this new functionality you can take bookings on-line and possible create more jobs in the future

State that this new development will reduce costs both physically printing invoices, and also will automate the process saving time.

State that the new system is friendly to the environment.

State that growth is possible with this expansion and the ability to create new jobs

The ability to export outside of Ireland is a great advantage.


We are here to help


If you are interested in this, and think you may have a project which is eligible we can help you through the process.
The PDF relating to this scheme can be read here


We have a great track record helping business obtain this grant, by working with them to investigate the feasibility of the project, perform market research and much more and in the end working and developing on-line projects which turned around their business.


Request a call back here


email us at [email protected]


call us at 021 6010795 +353216010795