THE 20 million people around the world who have access to the World Wide Web section of the Internet represent a special opportunity for Irish business, a seminar in Dublin heard yesterday.
Ms Debra Cameron told delegates to the WebAware conference that traffic on the Web the graphical, point and click section of the Internet was growing at 2,400 per cent a year.
"There is no other way that a small, rural Irish business can get orders from all around the world the way you can with the Web," said Ms Cameron, a US based consultant and author on Internet topics.
Blarney Woollen Mills, which already has a major mail order business in the US, has put "substantial" time and personnel effort into developing a Web presence over the past year.
Its marketing director, Mr Kevin Kelleher, said the site had grown from 10 to 100 pages of information and now attracted over 700 visitors a week. About 70 of these made contact with the company using electronic mail.
While Blarney's online sales were still very small in the context of its overall business, worldwide sales on the Internet last year were estimated at $35 million (£22.45 million) and growing.
The Web site was justified in terms of an "investment in the future", brand building, market research and customer feedback, the company said.
Mr Billy Huggard, of Communications Today magazine, which organised the conference, said he was very pleased with the attendance of over 280. "We have every major bank and every major insurance company there," he said.
The companies present ranged from single B&B businesses to major companies like the Bank of Ireland, he said, and about half the delegates were either managing directors or at the marketing manager or director level.
