Small Business Can

Thanks Helena

Great to hear you on exporting in Athlone. Hope you felt it went well too!

Looking forward to meeting up again soon

Kindest regards

Chris

Trophies Awards & Gifts Store
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Hi all

Great to meet so many of you at the fantastic Small Business Can Business Live events on Exporting for the past few days.

Just in case you missed it, we are looking for more organisations to sign up with us to give us and the couriers a better idea of volumes and prices.

Sign up on www.exportcoop.ie with €30 membership flatfeet for the year

We'll get small businesses exporting

Looking forward to chatting to you all shortly

Kindest regards

Chris
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Cheers Olwen!

Superb work yourself. If you are in a position to assist us at all by suggesting businesses that come up against this problem, we would be grateful.

Just register interest through www.exportcoop.ie

Kindest regards

Chris


www.exportcoop.ie
www.trophiesawardsandgifts.com
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Hey Richie

Seems like you are in the same boat as myself! We do, in theory know what we can expect to achieve in savings. We know that larger companies can avail of worldwide delivery for $9.99 per 5kilo or so. Huge savings!

But alas, I cannot give you a sum right now as to how much of a reduction we can give officially.

The more businesses that sign up, the greater the discount.

One thing that is clear. Once we have signed our deals with our regional partners, we will issue a rate cards so that you can programme confidently this information into your e-commerce platform to allow your users to know the delivery costs at point of sale.

We wanted to keep the membership fee low. There is no profit seeking here. Merely a way to cover the costs of legally running a cooperative. I feel that this is a no-brainer also, which is mostly why we have achieved the support from County Enterprise Boards, Enterprise Ireland, SFA, ISME and a host more.

Looking forward to chatting to you more Richie. If you have any other major questions, feel free to contact through!

Kindest regards

Chris

Irish Export Cooperative

Trophies Awards and Gifts Store
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We are happy to launch the Irish Export Cooperative www.exportcoop.ie to help small medium and micro enterprises in Ireland to drastically reduce the cost of export internationally.

We are helping businesses to come together to achieve enough volume from couriers to afford economies of scale and get small businesses trading.

For €30 a year, small businesses in Ireland will receive substantial discounts on their exports. Just log on to www.exportcoop.ie today to find out how.

Check out our Press release below and feel free to contact us with anything that we can help with

Categories: SME’s, Exporting, The Economy, Business helping Business, Jobs, Innovation


Irish Export Cooperative transforms exporting for Small Irish Firms

- New Cooperative group aims to bring global markets to small Irish firms
- Allowing small exporters

A new cooperative is creating innovative opportunities for small firms exporting from Ireland, by coming together to reduce prohibitive delivery costs.

Up to now small firms in Ireland could not negotiate on the cost of exporting because they could not guarantee future large volumes of exported goods. Many smaller retailers and craftspeople were charged exorbitant quotes to ship their products internationally. This left many barriers for retailers who saw the cost of exporting in excess of the cost of the products themselves.

Now, Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise Exporters in Ireland have the opportunity to join forces with other similar organisations to collectively reduce the costs of these exports and begin selling abroad at fixed fees at greatly reduced prices. The Co-Operative aims to achieve this by utilising the group purchasing model to create economies of scale thereby reducing cost of export for the individual member business. The Co-Operative will also bring in expertise in export markets, customs, finance, and insurance. The Co-Operative will be run by a committee of its members and managed by SME Capital Funds.

What started as a Twitter conversation has grown into a proactive initiative to help and support small, medium and micro sized enterprises to export their goods and enter new foreign markets. This initiative was sparked off by an order received from the USA by Chris Gordon, owner of an Irish firm called www.TrophiesAwardsandGifts.com. Chris needed to ship a small package and found that the cost was prohibitive. This got Chris thinking and sent him on to Twitter to see if other SMME business owner/managers found the same problem. From this Chris got linked onto the website of SME Capital Funds (www.smecapitalfunds.ie), a business consultancy firm based in Cork which specialises in providing consultancy services to SMME’s. Following a number of phone calls between Chris and SME Capital Funds the Irish Export Co-Operative was born.

Chris Gordon, Founder of the Co-Operative stated:
“This cooperative breaks down the barriers faced by too many SME's on the island of Ireland. We have personally faced these problems and now we have a concrete solution. This opens up new markets for small firms and crafts makers on the island of Ireland. We are using time tested approaches of democratic cooperatives to create a real game changer in exports in Ireland.
By creating a better platform to work together to create this initiative, we have gained the interests and support of Enterprise Ireland, the Small Firms Association, ISME, The Irish Exporters Association and the Cooperative Development Society amongst others."
David O’Brien, SME Capital Funds Added:
“This initiative is a proactive response to the current economic situation in Ireland. Government and politicians can only do so much, to get ourselves out of the current mire we are in, businesses must help themselves and each other. This Co-Operative is one manifestation of this ideal, it is a positive response and SME Capital Funds are delighted to be involved in such an initiative.”
Membership of the Co-Operative will be registered on an annual basis and an annual membership fee of €30 per member business to cover the costs of running the Co-Operative. To register your interest in becoming a member please log on to www.exportcoop.ie
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Notes to Editors
The Irish Export Co-Operative is an organisation set up to aid small, medium & micro enterprises to enter new markets and achieve cost savings on export costs. The Co-Operative will utilise the group purchasing model to achieve economies of scale in the area of shipping & courier services both exporting to foreign markets and domestically.
For more information on the Co-Operative contact David O’Brien at SME Capital Funds on 083 1166137, or email info@smecapitalfunds.ie or contact Chris Gordon on 0872700369




Chris Gordon from the Trophies Awards and Gifts Store
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Hey all

Looks like a craicing event!

Chris
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Here we go

www.TrophiesAwardsandGifts.com can be found at

www.facebook.com/taagstore

and on Twitter at

@taagstore
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Hi Eplixo

Thanks for your assistance and if we were doing larger volumes on commodities, you would indeed be correct, however, there are a number of problems. I will outline more information.

I sell to the Irish and UK markets. I know my market and I know who I sell to. I have had a lot of requests from the US from mostly new GAA clubs set up in the past few years. They are specifically looking for my products as I sell quality Irish awards.

This time, the order is 6 x 300g product, all six items fitting into a shoebox size. They are personalised and engraved and I have the address to ship to. I just need to quote for packaging. The value of the goods for purchase is €40 to the customer. Packing prices, the cheapest so far is €60. The customer is out €100.00

I cannot drop ship because I would personalise the award. Ideally, i am looking for a courier who will pick up from my door and deliver to the customer in the US for €20 or so.

Siopa.com sells much larger more expensive products worldwide for around $9.99 for all products. I hope to compete with these larger brands one day.

Does anybody know of any groups that would be able to assist me and thousands of other small firms and craftspeople around Ireland

Kindest regards

Chris
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Hi

I am an online retailer at the Trophies Awards and Gifts Store (www.TrophiesAwardsandGifts.com ). I supply trophies, medals, gifts and awards for all occasions and I am hoping to ship to the U.S. The cheapest quotes I have got so far for basic awards to be shipped are €60+.

Does anyone know if there is a better way to ship my products to the States and beyond?

Kindest regards

Chris


Chris Gordon
chris@taagstore.com
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