Archive for July, 2009

Little Splashes

July 30, 2009 at 12:25 am · Filed under Links ·Tagged , , , ,

An occasional series of links of interest:

Great article by Claire O’Connell from the Irish Times on the importance of getting the right car seat for you child.

Here’s an extract: IF THERE was one thing you could do to vastly improve your child’s chance of making it out of a car crash alive, and if that one thing cost only €5 per month, you would do it, wouldn’t you?  Yet when it comes to restraining children safely in cars, as many as four out of every 10 Irish parents don’t put so much as a seatbelt on their children, let alone an appropriate car seat. Meanwhile, up to 80 per cent of those who do use car seats and boosters for their kids do so incorrectly, according to the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

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Read the full article here.

Survey finds that the cost of child’s education is €70,000, Scary! Read the full article here.

In or around Wicklow over the weekend? Then why not head to the Tinahely show. Looks like a great day out. And if it rains don’t forget the wellies and the PuddleDucks!

Check out other family events over the Bank Holiday weekend on RollerCoaster.ie

And to finish, the next  in the series of  “Songs about Rain” is “Why does it always rain on me” by Travis. A cheery kind of tune! Let’s hope you won’t be singing this over the long weekend.

Have a good one!

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For Online Retailers, Google Is Still the Business

July 28, 2009 at 9:31 am · Filed under search engines ·Tagged , ,

A survey was carried out among Irish online retailers last week looking at how much traffic was generated by Bing, the new search engine from Microsoft.  

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Many thanks to the following for their involvement in the survey: Fred from Pressieport, Ciaran from Mick’s Garage, Anthony from Ummera Smoke House and Michael from Curious Wines. Huge thanks too to Sabrina Dent for her input to the drafting of the press release.

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Press Release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For Online Retailers, Google Is Still the Business

Cork, Ireland – 28 July, 2009 – In the two months since Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing, in a bid to capture market share from search giant Google, new statistics from online retailers in Ireland reveal that Google is still the search engine of choice among Irish shoppers.

Analysis of traffic across five sites from all search engines for the last month showed that Bing has only gained a 3% share of the search engine market, while Google still has around a 92% share of the search engine traffic in the survey.

Aedan Ryan, owner of PuddleDucks.ie commented “Google is still the overwhelming favourite for search among Irish online shoppers. The results also mean that getting good search results in Google is still the most important aspect of Search Engine Optimisation for Irish internet businesses.”

The survey represented a cross-section of vertical retail markets and encompassed PuddleDucks.ie, which sells children’s waterproof clothing; CuriousWines.ie, a discount wine retailer; Ummera, which sells Irish smoked foods; Pressieport, an online gift store and Mick’s Garage, which sells car parts and accessories.. Retailers uniformly reported minimal traffic from the new search contender, ranging from 0.7% to 4.4%.

A common complaint among the retailers focused on Bing’s geolocation information. Search engines, including both Google and Bing, use various methods of detecting a visitor’s physical location in order to deliver more tailored search engine results to searchers.

“For a sub-set of users, Bing appears to assume that Irish users are in the UK,” commented Michael Kane, owner of CuriousWines.ie. “When these users conduct a search, Bing asks you if you want worldwide results or UK-only results, rather than delivering the Ireland option. This is obviously a significant barrier for Irish retailers, and may account for the minimal impact Bing is having on the Irish market.”

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NOTE TO EDITORS: The statistics were provided for the period June 24th to July 24th and the detailed overall percentages were 91.9% Google, 3.1% Bing, 3.3% Yahoo and 1.7% others. For more information, please contact Aedan Ryan on 021 4372917 or aedan@puddleducks.ie

Links to websites taking part in the survey:
PuddleDucks: www.puddleducks.ie
Curious Wines: www.curiouswines.ie
Ummera: www.ummera.com
Pressieport: www.pressieport.ie
Mick’s Garage: www.micksgarage.ie

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Press Coverage: In the Echo

July 27, 2009 at 1:31 pm · Filed under In the Press ·Tagged , ,

There was a great article about PuddleDucks in Cork’s Evening Echo on Friday. 

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Thanks to all at the Echo for featuring us. You can just about read the article  at this link.

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Jumping in Muddy Puddles

July 20, 2009 at 10:46 pm · Filed under customer reviews ·Tagged , ,

We’re loving the reviews that customers have entered on the PuddleDucks website. Here’s one of the latest from Sandy in  Co. Offaly:

Your waterproofs are fantastic! We recently got to try out the dungarees and leggings on a very sunny but showery day. After 3 hours of splashing around in muddy puddles (a la Peppa Pig), I finally persuaded my puddle ducks to part with their new gear. I was very impressed with how lightweight and comfortable they were. And the best bit – you can just pop them in the washing machine after. My only regret is that I didn’t have them last summer!

 Thanks again to Sandy and seeing as Peppa Pig was mentioned, here’s a short clip of Peppa and George having fun jumping in the muddy puddles. In this snippet please substitute the word “PuddleDucks” for boots!

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New Fleeces Video

July 17, 2009 at 1:43 am · Filed under Video ·Tagged ,

I haven’t done an Animoto video for a while. I went back a few days ago and was reminded how great it is at putting together a video from selected photos. This time I used some photos of our range of kids fleeces. Here it is:

You can see all our videos on our YouTube channel here.

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New Packa Jacket at PuddleDucks

July 14, 2009 at 11:43 pm · Filed under Waterproof Clothing

Just too late for Oxegen, but in plenty of time for Electric Picnic we have introduced the Trespass Packa Jacket to our adult range. It’s what we call an “occasional use” waterproof jacket that  packs away into its own stuff sack ready for use when needed.  Easy to carry, this waterproof, wind resistant & breathable jacket does everything it needs to. It’s ideal for that music festival, camping trip, family day-out and numerous other outings. It’s priced at €29.99.

Packa Jacket Square

See all the details on the Packa Jacket here.

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Keeping an eye on the weather

July 9, 2009 at 1:17 am · Filed under business decisions, facebook, online advertising ·Tagged , , ,

As retailers of waterproofs, our sales are definitely affected by the weather. This is especially true during the Irish summer months. If we have a prolonged spell of wet weather our sales will generally increase. If the sun shines for a few days our sales will more than likely drop.

Managing our online advertising spend during the summer months can be an interesting task. If the weather is really nice for a few days I normally decrease the daily spend on Google Adwords – sometimes turning it off altogether for a few days of really sunny weather.

I have also been experimenting again with Facebook ads recently. I have set up a few different ads and have been turning them on and off for periods over the last few weeks depending on the day’s weather. Here’s one of them:

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The tool that I find really useful in managing these ads is the Met Eireann Rainfall Radar.

The Rainfall Radar is updated every 15 minutes and shows an accurate picture of the rainfall pattern over Ireland. The colour codes show the intensity of the rainfall and it can be animated on the Met Eireann site to show the progression of the rain in the last few hours. Here are a few examples:

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It’s raining over most of the country. Decision: Turn the Facebook Ad on for the day.

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It’s mostly fine throughout the country. Decision: No Facebook ads running and reduce the spend on Adwords.

The overall Met Eireann site is very easy to use and provides accurate weather information, forecasts and statistics. I am sure that they expect farmers and fishermen to use their information to decide on their course of action but they might be surprised to learn that an online retailer also makes use of their information to make important business decisions.

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July Discount on Adult Waterproofs

July 8, 2009 at 12:01 am · Filed under Offers, Our clothes ·Tagged , ,

For the month of July we’re offering a 10% discount from our range of Adult Waterproofs. We have a great range of lightweight and breathable jackets and trousers suitable for these showery summer days.

To see the Women’s range – click here

To see the Men’s range – click here

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To redeem your discount, enter one of the following discount codes at checkout:

Women’s Range use the discount code “JULY-W”

Men’s Range use the discount code “JULY-M”

It’s best to login or register first before redeeming the voucher. If you have any issues, just put the discount code in the Customer Notes section of the order and we will refund the discount to your card. Or else contact us on info@puddleducks.ie or call us on 021-4372917.

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On the beach

July 3, 2009 at 4:01 pm · Filed under Out and About ·Tagged , ,

We all headed to Fountainstown Beach this morning. Myself, Suzanne, Jake and four dogs – two of our own and two that we’re doggie-sitting this week. It’s a lovely beach and great for walking the dogs when the tide is out. We felt it was our own personal beach this morning as we had it completely to ourselves. We’re lucky. 

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Splish Splashing

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Jumping for Joy

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