The Online Trading Voucher
The Online Trading Voucher is an amazing initiative by the Local Enterprise Office.
It has been around for a while and previously offered 50% match funding for web development costs up to €2,500.
So if a project costed €2,500 – you would pay €1,250 and they would pay €1,250.
Pretty good, right?
Well – it’s just got better.
The Online Trading Voucher during COVID 19
Due to COVID 19 – the Local Enterprise are now offering 90% match funding of projects up to €2,500.
This means that if a project costs €2,500 – you will pay €250 and the LEO will pay €2,250.
The reason for this being that the LEO see the importance of getting businesses to trade online now even greater than ever before.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for the Online Trading Voucher, you must:
- have limited or no e-commerce presence (yet)
- have 10 or less employees
- have turnover less than €2m
- be registered and trading for at least 6 months
What the Online Trading Voucher can be used for:
Some of the main things that the voucher can be used for include:
- IT consultation
- Development or upgrade of an e-commerce website
- Implementing online payments or booking systems
- Purchase of Internet-related software
- Developing an app (or multiplatform webpages)
The application process:
To apply, you’ll have to:
- attend an online seminar hosted by the LEO. It doesn’t actually have to be your local office for this seminar.
- fill out an application form from the LEO that you’ll receive during the online seminar. You’ll have to send this to your nearest LEO.
- approval can take between 3 – 4 weeks
- once approved, you can begin the work immediately!
This is a great opportunity to start taking in revenue online without having to pay any big upfront cost.
Given the current restrictions, eCommerce is also seeing a lot of growth so there’s never been a better time to get started.
If you’re interested (or know someone who would be), let me know and we can get things in motion 🙂 And hurry – there are a limited number of vouchers being issued.
As always, thank you for reading.
P.s. here is a link to the South Dublin LEO’s online trading voucher page which has more detail about the voucher.
