Minister's Forerword
Introduction
Credits
Acknowledgements
The Magic Lamp
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
ESTABLISH AN ECOMMERCE ENABLED SHOPPING MALL FOR SMES
The Magic Lamp was established in mid 1998 as a mail order catalogue specialising in quality children’s educational toys, covering children from birth to age 12 and including a range dedicated to individuals with special needs.
Business Case for eCommerce Infrastructure Project
The mail order business is new in Ireland. Having produced two catalogues, The Magic Lamp received many enquiries from its customer base for an on-line version. Although not all of its 12,000 subscribers and customers are on-line, The Magic Lamp decided to switch its entire operation to the Internet and to devote all of its resources to the development of its Internet offering.
The original project was to convert its own business to the Internet. However, this was expanded as the project evolved to include the establishment of a shopping mall of 100 sites dedicated to giving eCommerce access to SMEs.
eBusiness Solution
As an SME, The Magic Lamp was concerned that the investment in this project would result in a highly resilient, flexible and scalable solution. Its experience in the preparation and launch of its first site brought the following lessons:
- It is extremely important for an SME owner/ manager to develop a good understanding of the technology in which they invest.
- It is essential for an SME to be able to change the content of its website in-house and not to be reliant on outside vendors post-launch. This inevitably points to a solution that does not require specific IT / HTML skills to change content.
- The costs of a customised solution place this option beyond the reach of most SMEs. Further, SMEs could find it difficult to get bank finance for their project if it is required, since banks in Ireland are still at the relatively early stages of their own eCommerce offerings.
Having researched the technology offerings available, The Magic Lamp was able to extend its eBusiness solution to one which offers securely hosted eCommerce websites to other SMEs. The software technology employed is Intershop’s ePages and the hardware Hewlett Packard. Server-hosting is provided by Esat Net and the technology consultants are Clarendon Technology and Webmarketing.
The Magic Lamp’s Shopping Mall allows merchants to select the type of store they want from a pre-determined range, for example they can select a brochure site or a full eCommerce enabled site. The Magic Lamp, and its partners, provide value-added services to launch the merchant’s site, the merchant is trained in its maintenance and from then on has complete control over the content of their website, although back-up services are available. Each merchant has their own unique URL.
The merchant pays for the value-added services and then a monthly rental for the site. The Magic Lamp does not take any commissions. Thus, the SME is able to avail of top level Intershop technology at an affordable price.
The Magic Lamp sees the Internet sales channel as an extension of the mail order business, of which the average retailer has little experience. The company provides advice on logistics, marketing, customer service and other aspects of the mail order business. Merchants who are SDS account holders are encouraged to use the Ansche /An Post tracking system.
Who will benefit from this eCommerce Infrastructure Development?
The Magic Lamp continues to sell educational toys; this now accounts for one part of its activities as opposed to being its core activity. The provision of eCommerce funding has enabled this company to transform its core activities from being an SME catalogue retailer to the provision of eCommerce services to SMEs. Accordingly, this project has the potential to benefit one hundred SMEs instead of just one.
The Magic Lamp is currently working with those of its subscribers and customers not yet on-line to inform them of how to gain Internet access.
The Magic Lamp’s initial merchants have come through word of mouth and include www.chocaid.com, and www.globalgolfwear.com, both to be launched in autumn 2000. Several other SMEs and schools will be launched in autumn 2000 and The Magic Lamp plans to fill its shopping mall by year end 2000.
The Magic Lamp
Clane Business Park
Clane
Co.Kildare
Tel: + 353 45 892 777
www.magiclamp.ie
genie@magiclamp.ie
