Tom Doyle

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Posts Tagged Business and Economy

1850 & 1890 numbers, your number is up!

Jan 14

Posted by Tom Doyle in Business & Economy

An old telephone.
Image via Wikipedia

There have been many discussions over the past couple of years about the value of 1890 and 1850 numbers to general public. In the past, when ringing someone outside your area code cost you an arm and a leg, these numbers were of true benefit to both the owner of the phone number and of course the person ringing the phone number.

From a business perspective, offering your potential customers the ability to ring you at local (or lower) call rates was a great and effective marketing ploy. To the customer, you were safe in the knowledge that a call to the said company would not result in a massive phone bill for something that was possibly a small matter.

However nowadays, 1890 and 1850 seem to be nothing but a scam with no more intentions than filling the telecoms operators coffers with vasts amount of money. There isn’t a telecoms company in Ireland today that don’t offer free national calls as part of their home phone packages. Therefore calling 1890 & 1850 numbers should be free right? Wrong….

Even though the number you are dialing may terminate at a local number, you will still be charged the rates associated with calling a 1890 or 1850 number. Whereas, if they had provided you with a landline number, it wouldn’t have cost you a penny.

It’s fair to say that most people aren’t aware of this fact, until of course they receive their monthly itemised bill that states this. For that reason many businesses will continue to promote their 1850 & 1890 numbers as it has the appearance of being a cheap way to contact them. It also removes “location” as an issue. If people don’t see the area code, they will just assume that the company is local.

The reality is that we should be pushing for these numbers to be stopped. The only people making money from them are the telecoms providers and I would hazard a guess that it’s quite substantial.

So if you are a business and want to save your customers some money, why not ditch the 1890 or 1850 number and start promoting your landline number again. If you are someone who rings these numbers, why not stop and starting seeking the landline numbers of the companies you are trying to contact?

There is a list of popular establishments landline numbers on this thread… http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=74589 – it may come in handy some time!

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Car leasing in Ireland

Jan 11

Posted by Tom Doyle in Driving & Cycling, Rantings


I was reading (and getting involved in) a very interesting thread on Boards.ie over the weekend. Initially the thread started as a “how much does it cost to build a website”, but it quickly evolved into a very interesting topic on what is required to get the best from a website. Someone happened to mention LingsCars.com – which is a highly successful car leasing web site in the UK.

I was delighted when Ling, the lady who set up LingsCars.com decided to join in on the conversation. Ling is probably best known for her appearance on the original Dragon’s Den TV series. She failed in her bid to get the Dragon’s to invest £50,000 in her Car Leasing business, but has roared to success in the past two years since her appearance on the show.

Her eye impairing (:P) website turns over more than £35 million a year in car leasing deals. It’s a true testament to how a great idea, a terrible looking website, with lots of traffic and constant customer engagement can be really successful on the Internet. Myself and Ling it seems will never agree on how she could improve conversions, but I have to admit that I really enjoyed the conversation with her.

Anyway, I’ve kind of gone of the topic here…

The whole thread made me think a little about the Irish and what makes us tick. Why do we insist on BUYING everything that costs more than a few thousand euro? What is it that makes us think that we must OWN our homes and cars. A lot would suggest that owning our homes relates back to the years of oppression suffered at the hands of the British, but surely that psyche hasn’t passed to owning cars too; or has it?

Car leasing has never caught on in Ireland, even though in many other countries (in particular the US) it is the norm. How many people actually know that their local garage even offer such leasing deals on cars – or do they just think, “if I want it, I have to buy it”.

There are many pro’s and con’s to leasing cars – but in todays world, with the recession still firmly gripped to the Irish economy’s throat, surely this is an option for many people who can no longer get the loan they could have in the past from the banks?

Have you ever considered leasing? And if not, why not?

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Ben Dunne’s TenderMe.ie – is it worthwhile?

Jul 24

Posted by Tom Doyle in Internet & Computers, Web Design, Web Development

If you had listened to NewsTalk 106 at all over the past couple of months, you will remember being bombarded by adverts for Ben Dunne‘s latest and greatest project – TenderMe.ie.

TenderMe is a system that allows anyone to go online, enter information on work you need done, whether it be office equipment or computer repairs and receive quotes to your email from a number of different suppliers who want your work.

Within days of the first advert being aired on the radio, people were buzzing about TenderMe.ie – nearly every person I met asked me about it or recommended that I try it.

Because of the exposure the site was getting I felt that I would be mad not to know about this site and how it functions. I didn’t believe the type of clientele my company works with would look or use this site, but I’m always open to being proven wrong! So off I went and signed up for an account to receive alerts on the types of job requests that I was interested in.

Within minutes of signing up – I was getting emails notifications (and quite regularly) of people looking for eCommerce websites, Content Managed Websites and even basic brochure type websites. I have to say, some of them (from their headline tag) looked like they could be nice projects for a company like ours. That was of course until you went to the website to read more detail. Only then would you realise, that there really was no description of these jobs at all. Well if you call “A company website selling products” a description of what is required, fair enough… but for the type of business we do, that’s just not enough to give anyone an accurate quote.

As it was only €3 to respond to a tender, I thought I’d do a few tests to see what kind of response I could get. My idea was to quote from two different types of suppliers – one a professional web design company and a few from a cheap and nasty type web design company. After spending €18 and quoting prices lower than any other possibly could, I didn’t once receive a response. I honestly didn’t expect a response to an average quote from a professional web design company at professional rates, but I did expect a response to the cheaper quotes. If people were looking for a good deal, they couldn’t have got any better as far as I was concerned.

It left me wondering whether these job postings were really legit or was it just Ben (or his staff) making up jobs tenders in order to fill the site with content or worse still… to line his pockets?

I do believe TenderMe.ie could be a useful service if there was a bit more transparency. Take for example Adverts.ie – they don’t let you make private offers, you must do everything in the open where everyone can see. This approach makes it very clear to everyone who is participating where they stand and whether or not they are getting a good deal. This approach would definitely reduce the money going into TenderMe.ie’s bank account initially – but the more people can trust the service, the more they will use it. This is something that Ben and his team have clearly missed.

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Guess who hasn’t updated their website then? Irish sites that still offer the 21% VAT rate!

Feb 14

Posted by Tom Doyle in Internet & Computers, Online Marketing

It’s been over 2 months since our new VAT rate of 21.5% was introduced, yet some companies feel that updating their website is not worth the hassle. Ok, they may have simply overlooked it, but is that really good enough?

Here’s just some of the companies yet to update their website:

www.selecthampers.ie
www.nhshop.com
www.3gmobile.ie
www.multizone.ie
www.terrys.ie

It might be easier for you if you just did a search on google – click here to run a check

So… have you checked your website yet?

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Our Hypocritical Government Shops Abroad

Jan 27

Posted by Tom Doyle in Politics, Rantings

SVG map of Ireland.
Image via Wikipedia

As the recession deepens and our government continues to peddle the “don’t shop up North, it’s unpatriotic” message, it seems are government is doing the exact opposite.

I just happened to take a look at the eTender notices I receive by email this morning and there was one web project that I completely overlooked (but that’s neither here nor there). It had been awarded and no, not to an Irish company.

The job was awarded to a UK company based in London. http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/Search_View.aspx?id=JAN112980&ln=EN

I’m sure this isn’t the only public tender contract that has been awarded to companies outside Ireland. You’d think the Government in times like this would give the job to Irish companies even if we are slightly overpriced. The money then is being pumped into our economy and not someone else’s.

The hypocrisy of it all!

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