Maria Nulty, sales and marketing director, Celtic Links Shopping Mall. A pioneer in on-line shopping, the company will carry Bewley's hampers and O'Neill's leisurewear on its site. Photograph: Bryan O`Brien
A start-up company has established one of the first Irish online shops to handle the delivery of all its vendors' products, and conduct complete credit card transactions online.
This week Celtic Links (www.celticlinks.com) reached an agreement to carry O'Neill's leisurewear and Bewley's hampers through its site, which specialises in Celtic products from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany.
Unlike other multi-product shopping sites, Celtic Links will organise the delivery of all its customers' products to the buyer. The transaction process is entirely automated and complies with the global SSL (secure socket layer) security standard. Customers to the site need only furnish their credit card and shipping details once by creating their own account.
On every return, the customer enters a user name and password which instantly recognises the corresponding credit card number. The account will also provide a transaction history and a product tracking facility to monitor where it is in the delivery process.
Operating out of a private home in Raheny and a warehouse in Santry, Celtic Links went online in May after brother and sister, Sheamus and Maria Nulty gave up their jobs to focus on an electronic commerce site. Mr Nulty, the site Webmaster, brings his experience at 3Com to the new business.
Celtic Links was set up with an initial £8,000 investment from one of its directors who acts as financial controller. A further bank loan of £15,000 helped Celtic Links finance its server and credit card services.
All credit card authentication is conducted through NatWest bank in Britain, after the Nultys failed to find an Irish bank to conduct online credit card checking.
According to Mr Nulty the Celtic Links site is different from bank-run shopping mall sites like irelandathome.com and shopireland.com because it manages the entire transaction process for the vendors.
Mr Nulty believes the site will be particularly attractive to small vendors who could not otherwise afford to deliver products overseas.
