It offers online discount codes which you use to get special deals and cheaper goods and services and has a specific Irish Food & Beverage section!
But when I later looked closer into the website I couldn't find any Irish Food! (I know, Note to self - check your sources properly in the first place). The only name in the food and beverage section that is Irish is SuperQuinn and the only other one I recognise as having premises here in Ireland is Tesco!
They seem to be a well-established business and have hundreds of UK shops on their books but I think you should at least contact every Irish Food producer you can find and see if they want to be part of the process, before you offer a "Food & Beverage" section on an Irish Dot .IE website.
People are being very careful about their money these days but we still like our treats. If you can find a way to have what you want, but pay less then you'll jump at the chance. There are great opportunities in sites like this, for the big name food brands, small producers and all sorts of restaurants, to gain more online-business by offering the discounts if your product is bought from your online shop. Less overheads, less staff, less rates, less lots of things!
Almost all Irish restaurants now offer Vouchers for customers - if you don't you should. Many of them now offer an online version of their voucher - it's part of your product, it makes good business sense, it's cash in the bank. I've spent an hour or so searching the Internet and can't find anything offering a similar Irish service.
There are loads of great Blogs and sites based here, like CheapEats.ie and CorkBilly.com that tell you about special deals that they've seen or been told about - I will give a good Restaurant or Food Producer a push here myself the odd time too if you ask me nicely. But as far as I know there isn't another online facility for Food Businesses to offer online discounts such as this. (Do correct me if I'm wrong and haven't seen your website!)
I'll send a link for this post to DiscountCodes.ie to see if they reply. They have a note in their 'Advertise Section' that says: "If you own an Irish online shop and want to place your discount codes on DiscountCodes.ie, don’t hesitate to contact us. Your contact person at DiscountCodes.ie: Henning Kruthaup, Managing Director. E-Mail: patrice.hauck@meingutscheincode.com " (which must mean that they are a subsidiary of a German company)
So, to end. If you're an Irish Food producer or restaurant you could call them up and find out what it costs or if your an Irish Techie that's looking for a new business model maybe you could start your own version!
Zack
