Archive for February, 2009

Our new Wellies – you can’t eat ’em…

February 26, 2009 at 1:28 pm · Filed under Waterproof Clothing ·Tagged , ,

..but they smell so good!

Introducing our new Smelly Wellies.

We’re often asked if we sell wellies but up to now we haven’t as we we couldn’t find wellies that we really liked.  But we’ve been searching far and wide and finally have found them!  Top quality welllies that are designed for little feet and have an extra fun aspect to them… Strawberry Pink and Chocolate Brown Smelly Wellies!   

strawberry-wellly-detailed

 

As well as being fully functional – great quality, both soft and hard wearing – they also have a unique extra feature – they smell nice!  The pink boots smell just like strawberries and the brown wellies smell like chocolate! The smell comes from a non-toxic food essence that will last for ages.

chocolate_welly_detailed

They cost €17.50 a pair.  Head on over to the PuddleDucks website and check them out here.

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TuesdayPush: Pushing the Push

February 25, 2009 at 1:07 am · Filed under tuesday push

I had been observing Tuesday Push for a while before I had our blog up and running. I always thought it was a great idea – a way for the Irish tech community to support their own in a coordinated way – highlighting a new product or service every second Tuesday across their blogs or websites.

Last year eight companies were pushed. And recently I had the opportunity to partake myself with the last 2 pushes for IGOpeople and Twitter Mosaic.

Tuesday Push is only one of many examples of the community spirit of the Irish tech community. Other examples are Free Blog Training, Open Coffees, Barcamps, Bizcamps, Support on Twitter and IGOPeople. It is really impressive that people are willing to provide free support and time to others in the community.  

There are some guidelines for who can be selected for being pushed. The product or service must be in some way innovative or unique. And you should only push if you genuinely believe in the push-ee.

I look forward to continuing to push in the future.

If you want to be pushed the application is here.

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Free Waterproofs for Pre-School Kids

February 19, 2009 at 1:04 am · Filed under Blogging, General, Waterproof Clothing ·Tagged , ,

Unfortunately only in Scotland!

 I came across this report from the Scottish TV website.  

More than 4,000 pre-school children at Highland nurseries are to receive all-weather play suits. Highland Council’s “Rain Starts Play” initiative will allow school staff to take children out in all weather conditions by supplying every pre-school facility in the region with waterproof suits and wellington boots.

The all-weather clothing is to be paid for by funding from a Big Lottery award. The project was one of the groups that competed in the People’s Millions contest on television. Viewers from across the Highlands voted in the Scottish regional contest allowing the project to receive £80,000 funding. The all-weather suits have been arriving at pre-school facilities over recent weeks and many groups of children dressed in red rain suits have been seen enjoying the snow in Inverness, Resolis and elsewhere throughout the Highlands.

Image from STV

Image from STV

 Councillor Bill Fernie, chairman of Highland Council’s education, culture and sport committee, said in a statement:  “The beauty of this all-weather equipment is that it will allow our children to play out of doors all year round no matter what the weather.

A fantastic initiative – it would be great if it could be emulated in Ireland. I also like the idea that local communities can vote on how parts of the lottery grants are distributed. True people power!

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Case Study in eBusiness Live

February 18, 2009 at 12:50 am · Filed under In the Press ·Tagged ,

ebusiness-live

 

We are featured in a Case Study in the Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Live newsletter today. It details the short history of our business and how we utilise this blog along with Facebook and Twitter to promote what we do.

You can read the full case study here.

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High Viz Video

February 16, 2009 at 12:46 am · Filed under Waterproof Clothing ·Tagged , , ,

This is our latest Animoto video showing our range of high visibility waterproofs.

[clearspring_widget title=”Animoto.com” wid=”46928cc51133af17″ pid=”4998a93aacbaa7e1″ width=”432″ height=”240″ domain=”widgets.clearspring.com”]

To see details of our high visibility range click here.

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PuddleDuckers Out and About 3

February 14, 2009 at 2:23 am · Filed under Blogging, Our clothes, Out and About, Waterproof Clothing ·Tagged ,

The next in the series of PuddleDuckers Out and About comes from Mandy Berkeley from Co. Wicklow. The photo below shows Mandy’s little girl, Faye wearing her PuddleDucks All-in-One Suit while attending Rally Ireland a few weeks ago.

Mandy left this note on our Facebook Fan page:

Just back from the rally. Just wanted to let you know that the all in one was fantastic, it lashed rain all weekend and my little miss was perfectly warm and dry. Thanks so much for getting it to me by Thursday we wouldn’t have been able to go without it. The picture is of her getting her lunch and it was pouring down. Thanks so much and we are delighted to be a fan.

2009_0130wrc20090005

Thanks Mandy for sending on the photo and feedback.

If any other customers have photos they’d like me to feature here, please email me at info AT puddleducks DOT ie.

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Tuesday Push – Twitter Mosaic

February 11, 2009 at 9:37 am · Filed under tuesday push ·Tagged

This weeks Tuesday Push is for Twitter Mosaic developed by Walter at Sxoop Technologies. This is how it works –  Go to the Twitter Mosaic site, enter your Twitter username (no password required) and it displays a mosaic who’s following you on Twitter or who you are following. You can then paste the code to display this on your blog as I have below.

But Walter has taken this a step further – he’s partnered with Zazzle.com so you can display your mosaic on a T-shirt, mug, bag or business card. I’ve already ordered my mug and found that the ordering process is simple and straightforward. I paid by PayPal and that worked beautifully.

It’s a great application. Walter demoed it at last week’s Cork Open Coffee meeting and it was interesting to hear how it evolved from the first step through to where it is now. I think it can go further – especially if extended to work with other social networking sites like Facebook.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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Latest Facebook Ad Campaign Results

February 10, 2009 at 1:14 am · Filed under facebook, online advertising ·Tagged ,

We did another campaign on Facebook for our January Sale. It was run over a period of 7 days. The ad looked like this.

facebook-ad-2

The landing page for the ad was our home page and after the 7 days the stats looked like this:

Impressions: 116,744

Clicks 170

Click Through Rate %: 0.15

Cost Per Click: $0.16

Total Cost: $26.78

Looking at Google Analytics I see that we received one conversion from the campaign. The bounce rate was also quite high at 44.27%.

Conclusion:

The cost per sale of $26.78 was high – much higher than the cost per sale for our Google Adwords. As we found in our previous campaigns, Facebook Ads are not great for conversion to sales as users are not in a shopping mode at the time. They are good for getting traffic to your site and for brand awareness.

I’m going to try another experiment with Facebook Ads again soon. For the next campaign I’ll attempt to get signup to our newsletter and maybe incentivise by offering entry in a prize draw. I expect that the conversions for signups will be higher than conversions for sales. It will make an interesting experiment anyway and I will publish my results here.

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PuddleDuckers Out and About 2

February 9, 2009 at 12:17 am · Filed under Customer Photos ·Tagged , , ,

The next in the series of PuddleDuckers enjoying the great outdoors comes to us from Elizabeth Doherty.

On the beach

On the beach

The photo shows David and Alex messing around on the beach at Enniscrone, Co. Sligo with their grandad John.

Thanks Elizabeth for sending on the photo.

If other customers have photos they’d like me to feature here, please email me at info AT puddleducks DOT ie.

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Ryanair being ripped off on Credit Card Charges

February 8, 2009 at 9:18 am · Filed under consumer issues ·Tagged , , , ,

I have come to the conclusion that  Ryanair are being ripped off on the credit cards charges they pay to the banks. How? – well compare these online purchases:

on Ryanair.com: The credit cards charges on a €5  customer purchase is €10.00.  This charge is passed on to the customer. This translates to a rate of 200%.

on PuddleDucks.ie: The credit cards charges on a €5  customer purchase is €0.11 (that’s 11 cents). This is not passed on to the customer. This translates to a rate of 2.2%.

visa-mastercard

I first thought that Ryanair could have been profiteering or trying to screw extra money from the customer. But I checked online and it appears that it’s not the case! Ryanair state the following in the FAQ on their website.

To defray the substantial administration costs we incur when processing credit and debit cards or ELV direct debits a handling fee applies to each passenger per flight segment.

So if we are to take Ryanair at their word, then the logical conclusion is that Ryanair are paying exorbitant rates to the banks for processing credit cards on their website. Almost 100 times more than little PuddleDucks are paying.

If I were them, I would begin a serious renegotiation with their bank or credit card processor. It looks like they are being ripped off royally. By renegotiating the charges down to the 2.2% that PuddleDucks are being charged, they could dramatically reduce the bottom line cost of their flights to their customers.

As an example, I booked a return flight from Cork to Dublin last week. I was charged €5 for the flight and €10 for the luxury of using a credit card. If Ryanair managed to renegotiate their charges to get a similar deal as PuddleDucks, the cost of the flight would be €5.11 rather than €15.

By the way, if Ryanair don’t manage to successfully renegotiate their charges, I have heard about two tips that can help the customer avoid them. I haven’t tried them out but hopefully they should work.

1. Purchase a Gift Voucher from the Ryanair site. This does not attract credit card charges (why not?). Then use the voucher to book your flight. Slight drawback – the minimum denomination of the voucher is €25 and as expected, Ryanair will not refund or give change for any unused funds..

2. Buy an EntroPay card (select GBP as the currency) and use this when paying for flights on the Ryanair website. It is seen as a Visa Electron card which does not attract credit card charges. You pay around 5% commission for the use of the card – a lot less than the charges imposed by Ryanair. The process is described in detail on the Bargains for Irish Consumers blog here.

Thanks to John Peavoy and Anthony Creswell for the above tips (via Twitter of course).

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