Netshoppers’ iPhone boost
E-COMMERCE specialists, Stockton-based Visualsoft said it was ready to launch the first iPhone software to be fully compatible with eBay’s UK online marketplace.
The firm also announced it would be opening offices in Newcastle and Yorkshire ‘within the next six months’, having set up its first base outside Teesside at Peterlee earlier this summer.
The iPhone programme, which has been developed in partnership with eBay and Apple, is a follow-up to Visualsoft’s groundbreaking search engine assistant Goofbay. The free service optimises buyers’ trawl through millions of eBay products, by finding e-ads that have been incorrectly labelled or misspelled. At any one time, more than 100 Playstations are missed in searches because of user error in uploading descriptions.
The programme is the latest in a stable of fully automated sites at the core of the Visualsoft business model, which has built its success on sites that ‘make money while you sleep’, including three training packages set up at the inception of the company, 10 years ago. Goofbay alone generates more than £100,000 a year. “And we don’t have to lift a finger,” said business development manager Tim Johnson.
Joint director Dean Benson, said the company, which saw in increase in turnover to nearly £1m last year, had started to appear on the radar of some of the most influential internet solution providers as it set about a rebranding exercise this year that positions it as the leading UK e-commerce specialist.
“Everybody asks us what’s our exit plan. I think that’s a very London-based term. If you are happy and your staff are happy, you shouldn’t have one,” said Mr Benson.
He said core business development would remain on Teesside, which has added two to its 17-strong team in the past few weeks and is looking to recruit more.
“In Newcastle there is more competition from bigger brand companies producing ‘nice sites’, but the problem is nice sites do not always convert into profitable e-commerce sites.”
