Online shopping continues to rocket and, as the future appears to be shifting onto the world wide web, it has put local businesses at a disadvantage; but the new eLocal.ie service introduced by An Post is a game-changer.

“Online shopping is growing at a rapid rate. In Ireland, the amount of online parcels that we delivered a year to date has increased 30% on last year,” says Garrett Bridgeman, managing director of An Post’s mails and parcels division.

“There are a couple of hundred-thousand small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in the country, and for many the online opportunity is passing them by. One of the big problems they face is that they don’t have big budgets like Dunnes Stores, and they find it difficult to put their shop online. An Post developed a software platform called eLocal.ie, which provides businesses with the ability to get their shop online,” says Garrett.

By using this service, consumers can shop online wherever they see the eLocal.ie logo, and their purchased item will be delivered locally within 24 hours, or nationally within 48 hours. Thus, eLocal enables homegrown businesses to have an online relationship with their customers.

“Many people don’t want to buy through an Amazon site if they can purchase the product locally. Irish people like to buy from their local shops and, through eLocal.ie, we have given them that facility.

“We provide businesses with a payment mechanism so that customers can order their products and pay online. We provide that free-of-charge and we also supply packaging.”

An Post’s new service signifies their genuine care for local businesses, according to Garrett. “We don’t want these small businesses to lose out as more people are buying online, which is the future.

“We are embedded in our local communities with over 10,000 employees based in every town in Ireland. We are the fabric of many communities, we collect their letters every day so why wouldn’t we collect their products from their local retailers. It is a perfect match.”

The eLocal pilot scheme got underway in March, and big plans wait in the wings. “Before we roll the service out to every town in Ireland, we are testing the service in three town: Ennis, Mullingar and Bantry. We launched in early March and we are going to run it for two-three months to ensure that everything works properly. At the end of May we will review it.”

Equipped with delivery expertise, An Post will be more than capable of hacking the pace if the service takes off.

“An Post delivers over two million items every day to over two million houses and over 250 thousand businesses. At Christmas, mail volumes double and we are still able to deliver the next day, so in terms of capacity there are no issues. We can collect an item in Kinsale and deliver it in Carndonagh the next day. We are a well-oiled machine in that regard,” Garrett assures. CL

Local businesses can sign up to the eLocal service online. For more details see www.elocal.ie.