The booming tech industry in West Cork is one of the reasons an American firm has decided to invest further in Cork, The Southern Star has learned.
THE booming tech industry in West Cork is one of the reasons an American firm has decided to invest further in Cork, The Southern Star has learned.
The Sea Box Group, a heating solutions provider, has launched two online e-commerce companies in Ireland.
They will be based in Cork city and will create 20 jobs over the coming years.
These are the first websites of their kind to launch in Ireland.
They will operate as an online shop for tradespeople with educational resources to help with technical information.
Sea Box Group owns Sea Box EMEA, NRG Awareness and Sea Box Energy Commercial.
This is part of a major five-year plan for expansion into e-commerce markets for the Sea Box Group with an overall investment of €1m.
The two websites will be called Sea Box Shop and NRG Store. The will partner with various companies to offer products to customers.
It is expected there will be 10,000 products available on both platforms by the end of 2019. Both sites will be selling items in Ireland as well as internationally.
Managing director of Sea Box Energy, Patrick Hogan told The Southern Star this week that the progress in the tech industry in West Cork was one of the reasons the company had identified Cork as a location.
And he described both businesses as ‘like the Amazon for heating supplies. This will all be managed out of Cork.’
Sea Box Shop will sell online container parts and other related container items. It is expected to have a product line of more than 300 unique items and some patented, never available before items all around the world. NRG Store will be focused on online heating, cooling and energy ecommerce. This website is for both domestic and commercial customers.
Mr Hogan added: ‘NRG Online will allow tradespeople to plan their week’s work have it delivered from our multiple filaments centers around Europe in time for their needs onsite. We will also be offering finance options so that people will be able to spread the cost of the project.’
Recruitment has already begun for both of these new businesses.
West Cork has seen a strong growth in technology-related firms since the opening of the digital hub in Skibbereen, powered by Vodafone. A number of small firms, which started life at the hub, have since expanded and found other premises locally.
The hub officially opened in July 2016 on Townshend Street in Skibbereen.
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