Startershop News

Startershop Ltd, are making moves to attract pet shop owners to trade online through their new £199 ecommerce web shop product.

A Startershop can hold up to a thousand products, with descriptions, prices and pictures. Significantly, Startershop owners require no web design skills or understanding of any technical terminology.

Startershop comes to market at a time when people are comfortable buying most things online. Certainly the latest Government figures show that over half the UK’s households are spending in excess of £18 billion through the web on goods and services. Startershop has been specifically designed so that small businesses can claim a share of that income. Pet supplies should be no different, given the number of pet owners already choosing to buy all sorts of goods online.

David Yates, Startershop’s founder explained. “There are a lot of small businesses out there: entrepreneurs; bedroom businesses; retailers and crafts people, all of whom need to be selling over the web. But when you consider the pet supplies market, the proposition is very compelling. Half the households in the UK own a pet. And online sales across the board are rising by over 80% every year – usually at the expense of high street trade. This is where a Startershop can make a real difference. For an outlay of £199, you can get a complete website with a store and credit card handling facilities. Startershop has been designed to allow small businesses to get a fair share of the online market.”

The idea of trading online is nothing new to small businesses. However, the available research points to costs in excess of £2000 to acquire this sort of ecommerce capability.

David went on to explain, “Until now, for any small business, trading on the web has either been prohibitively expensive, totally confusing or both! At £199, we have made Startershop cheap enough to be affordable to just about anyone. We have also designed it so that, if you can turn on a computer and use the keyboard and mouse, you can run a Startershop”.

While Startershop is a new product, the number of Startershop owners is growing. Startershop has already attracted a range of ventures including an international commercial rights organisation, a site selling Fair Trade goods from South African community projects and a group of students selling tee shirts. Startershop are now working on attracting pet supply stores to launch online shops with them.

Further information can be found about Startershop on their website at www.startershop.com

– Ends –

Contact details
For more information, photography of the launch or Startershop success stories, please contact:
David Yates
Tel: 087 1234 3434
Email: david.yates@startershop.com

More information about Startershop available at: http://startershop.com
RSS Newsfeed available at: http://news.startershop.com/feed/

Notes to editors

Startershop Limited
Startershop Limited was formed in August 2005. It was set up to design and market products that provide individuals and small companies with robust and easily usable tools to help them to compete with bigger companies.

Statistics
Pet Ownership statistics
The Pet Food Manufacturers Association (PFMA) state that:
“Just under half the households in the UK own a pet”
http://www.pfma.com/public/petownership.htm

Online purchasing
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on 4th November 2005 that:

The value of Internet sales to households rose to £18.1 billion in 2004 from £10.8 billion in 2003, a rise of 67.6 per cent.
6.7 per cent of businesses sold over the Internet in 2004 (5.4 per cent in 2003) while 35.3 per cent made purchases over the Internet in 2004 (29.4 per cent in 2003).

32 per cent of businesses with 1000 or more employees sold over the Internet in 2004 and 70.3 per cent purchased over the Internet in 2004.

Internet purchases by businesses rose 64.6 per cent, from £37.9 billion in 2003 to £62.4 billion in 2004.
33.8 per cent of businesses had a website in 2004, compared to 30.7 per cent of businesses in 2003. Of businesses with 1000 or more employees, 98.1 per cent had a website in 2004.

For businesses with an Internet connection, the use of broadband as the primary connection method rose from 25.7 per cent in 2003 to 42.3 per cent in 2004, an increase of 64.6 per cent.

Detailed results of the ONS reports can be found online at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STatbase/product.asp?vlnk=6645

Verdict Research report that in the UK, online shopping accounts for half of retail sector growth:

The online market is the fastest growing sector of UK retail at present and this is increasingly occurring at the expense of the high street. Consumer confidence and expectation is increasing as one in four consumers now purchase goods over the internet, meaning continual development of online presence is essential to maintain and increase market share.

A new report from retail analysts Verdict Research, part of the Datamonitor Group, reveals the true strength of the online retail sector. Last year online retailers accounted for almost half the cash growth in retail spending, with sales increasing 15 times faster than the retail average. Though online’s share of retail is still small, its meteoric growth is sending shock waves throughout the wider retail sector as shoppers of all ages transfer their purchases online.

Full version of Verdict report available from: http://www.verdict.co.uk/

Costs
In 2004, the ecommerce software company Actinic reported that the average price charged by a web designer to build an online store for a client was £2293.

Full Actinic report can be downloaded from: http://www.actinic.com/resources/actinic_webDesignReport2004.pdf

Background to Startershop

The founders and directors of Startershop Ltd are David Yates and Simon Wheatley. David and Simon have worked together in designing industry leading web sites in the Financial Services sector for organisations such as Bank of Scotland, Sony, Clerical Medical and Egg.

David and Simon have individually designed for organisations including The Ministry of Defence, BP, The Princes Trust, BAT, Jaguar, Deawoo, Ricoh Cameras, Sharp Electronics, Rohan, Karrimor and others.