The Filter

A couple of us from MicksGarage attended the eCommerce Expo in London yesterday. This is an event where companies offering products and services of use to online retailers and other eCommerce companies get to showcase their wares. The eCommerce sector is booming, as was eveident from the amount of exhibitors and attendees at the event. It was great to see an Irish company exhibiting there - Denise Cox from Newsweaver, the leading newsletter specialists, did a very impressive and well-attended seminar at the event.

As for MicksGarage, we picked up some great tips, advice and contacts, so you can expect to see continuing improvements in our website. It's important for an online retailer to continue to make the user experience better and website functionality can always be improved upon. We took some great ideas away from this event and it will definitely go into the diary for next year.

I'm a big fan of the Irish Times Motoring supplement. It's a quality publication with a crew of true professionals who really know what they're writing about. They've also branched into the audio world with the launch of Torque Radio (great name), which is a series of Podcasts on various topics, some of which have been covered in the newspaper. The show is hosted by well known Irish motoring journalist, Paddy Comyn. It's well worth bookmarking.

We're not one of these websites that constantly changes our look, but we have redesigned our product pages. As well as the new design of the Product Page, we've developed a Product Q&A section on the page, which should help customers with the most common queries around certain products.

We will soon be launching a Product Review facility where customers can review products they have purchased and we will post the reviews onto the Product Page also. Watch this space!

http://www.thecanvasworks.ie/

This is a great website if you want to turn one of your photos into a canvas for your wall. I had one done myself and it turned out great. You can even enhance or put effects onto your photo. They have a great turnaround time, the picture arrived perfectly packaged and they deliver nationwide. It's an excellent website to purchase a unique gift for your loved one.

The website is easy to navigate and use. They also do some funky photography and artwork from various photographers and artists.

www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk - Here's a good website for those thinking of buying a greener car for next year. It details low emission cars from each car manufacturer, information on the most economic cars, road test reviews (even video reviews), and latest news from the industry. It also provides some really good and detailed guides to green cars, which explains some of the terms and features associated with them. 

Overall a very decent website, well designed and some useful information for drivers with a green conscience.

A useful website - www.Onlinetradesmen.com allows you to quickly get a quote for a job from a number of tradespeople, without the hassle of ringing around. Whether you want a bit of tiling done or a full extension to your house, you can get a number of quotations from qualified tradespeople through this website for FREE. They also have a sister website, www.handyhardware.ie , where you can buy DIY products, garden furniture etc and have it delivered to your door. Excellent stuff!

Myself and a couple of friends bought these from iBood.com and they really are a bargain. You can download around 500 movies onto them, photos etc. My technology mates could tell you a lot more about it (check the iBood website for proper info), but as far as I'm concerned it's very easy to use, works well and is small so you can bring it with you if you're heading away. I think it was about 125euro. IBood.com is a nifty website that sends you an email each day with a link to one product which is being sold off cheap. Sounds like a scam but it's surprisingly good. I was worried that i'd end up buying a whole heap of state-of-the-art tin openers, hoovers that also paint walls and remote control helicopters but to date i've just gone for the Argosy. The products tend to come around periodically, so if you miss out on it (there are usually limited stock), it will probably come around a few weeks later.