Today the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment (DETE) has proposed a further call for Online Retail Scheme applications. This new wave of support has a total fund size of €9.3 million.

Applications for funding are invited through a public call for submission of projects.

• Call Open date: Thursday 5th May 2022
• Call Close date: Wednesday 1st June 2022 at 12pm (noon)
• Here is a link to the Enterprise Ireland website
• See their overview video here

What Kinds of Services Are Covered by the Grant?

Typical elements involved in developing a sophisticated and transactional online presence include:

StudioForty9 has experience of working with over 40 successful grant applicants in 2021.

Whether you are looking to sell online for the first time or accelerate your existing online business through advanced performance marketing and ecommerce growth we would love to hear from you. Here are some of the activities we would be recommending;

• Ecommerce Strategy Development
• Internationalisation Strategy Development
• Custom User Experience and Design
• Custom EPoS / ERP Integrations
• Ecommerce Growth through Increased Customer Acquisition and Customer Retention
• Advanced Segmentation and Email Workflows

Who Can Apply for These Grants?

In order to apply for the Covid-19 Online Retail Scheme, you must be an Irish-owned retail enterprise meeting the following criteria:

• Have an existing online presence (e.g. website or social media)
• Have at least one physical retail store
• Where a company provides both products and services, the applicant must provide a breakdown of sales revenue showing that products account for more than 50% of total revenue for a recent trading period, which may be up to the call close date
• Where a company has a mixture of business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) operations, the applicant must provide a breakdown of sales revenue showing that sales from B2C activities account for more than 50% of total revenue for a recent trading period, which may be up to the call close date
• Employ at least 10 employees in the Republic of Ireland on a full-time equivalent basis in the latest accounting period
• Successful applicants from previous calls are eligible to re-apply under this call, once they have
  • substantially completed the project funded,
  • proposed a clearly different project to that undertaken under a previous approval.
  • Applicants who have been successful in the past calls will be awarded funding to finance a maximum of 50% of the eligible project costs. Applicants who will be successful first time, will be awarded funding to finance a maximum of 80% of the eligible project costs.

Eligible Expenditures and Limits

Expenditure claimed must be incurred by the legal entity to which the grant is offered.

The minimum project expenditure is €20,000. Applications with expenditure below €20,000 will be considered ineligible.

• For first time applicants, the grant is calculated at a maximum of 80% of eligible expenditure of up to €80,000. The maximum grant available is up to €64,000.
• For applicants who were awarded funding in the previous Online Retail scheme calls, the grant is calculated at a maximum of 50% of eligible expenditure of up to €80,000. The maximum grant available is up to €40,000.

Please see the Enterprise Ireland website for the ineligible criteria.

Why Choose StudioForty9?

StudioForty9 is a recognised leader in the Irish digital sector, with an award-winning and proven track-record of delivering, maintaining and continuously improving high-performance ecommerce and omnichannel retail solutions for the Irish retail industry.

The StudioForty9 team is experienced, innovative, and committed to excellence and we count some of Ireland’s most experienced ecommerce professionals among our number.

Our experience and ability has led us to work with some of Ireland's leading household names in retail. We have helped those companies to grow their business in Ireland by capturing extra market share and serving their in store and online customers across a wider range of commercial channels as well as overseas, by opening up previously inaccessible markets and building the integrations, automated processes and workflows needed to help scale an online business for international sales.

We have a significant depth of experience to draw on and can boast of work as varied as the Grand Prix Eircom Spider winning Fota Wildlife Park, to helping scale DID Electrical to tens of millions of Euro in online sales.

We are at the forefront of Irish ecommerce and ahead of the pack when it comes to implementing innovative and complex ecommerce solutions for omnichannel and international sales at scale, while also excelling at design and customer experience, and keeping right up to date with ecommerce trends and new requirements in compliance and regulations.

We operate on a partnership approach where our clients come first. We strive to develop long-term and meaningful relationships. We are platform agnostic, which allows us to advise and enable our clients to get the system best suited to their needs and ambitions.

Digital Commerce is our business and our passion, expressed by a keen focus on the end result: ecommerce businesses that scale sustainably, delivering significant revenue and ongoing growth to our partner clients.

“We worked with Studio49 on a website redesign. From start to end the process was seamless. The team were great to work with, really professional, easy to work with and had a great understanding of our brand and requirements. I would highly recommend.”
Nicola Bailey, Ecommerce Manager, Fulfil Nutrition