Des Martin

• Company: EasyDeals
• Industry: Online Promotional Marketing
• Website: http://www.easydeals.ie/
• Location: Blackrock, Co. Dublin

We met with Des Martin of EasyDeals to talk about his new business.

What service is offered by EasyDeals?

Irish consumers want to know which shops have the best deals on the products and services that they need. EasyDeals is a local deal finder. Wherever you are in Ireland, whatever you need, you can search for the best deals using our site.

IBEC estimate that there are approximately 20,000 retail businesses in Ireland. The Kelsey Group estimates that at least 50% of these companies engage in direct mail, flyers, banners and shop window printed promotion. We offer a targeted and low cost promotional service to local business which is an alternative to Direct Mail campaigns.

How did the idea for Easydeals come about?

I got the idea for the business after returning home from a brief holiday to find that my letterbox was so full of phone books, directories and flyers that my real post was going missing.

The wasteful nature of this process got me thinking about environmental and business solutions. I realised that for a solution to work it had to make financial sense for Irish business.

From this EasyDeals was born.   I started the business in 2009, with my business partner Andrew Mullaney, and the site went live in April 2010.

It’s a well researched fact that direct mail response statistics are less than 1%. People now research online before they buy, so often consumers have made a decision before they get to a retail premises. We proved a medium for Irish business to tap into this market.

Who is the business person you admire the most?

Eddie O’Connor from MainStream Renewable Power and James Ives from Open Hydro are the business people I look up to the most. I have heard them speak several times over the last few years. In addition to running great companies they really believe in what they do. This belief in what you do is a great motivator; it is what keeps you going even through the tough times.

What are your plans for the future?

EasyDeals has grown exponentially over the last three months and now has almost 20,000 visitors and in excess of 60,000 page views per month. We expect this traffic to double by the end of 2010.

We have a mobile phone application launching in September. It will enable users to find deals in their immediate location. We hope it will be a hit with Halloween and Christmas shoppers.