Empower Fund - Website and eCommerce development

Doing business on the internet gives a small business the opportunity to act like a bigger business - to reach customers in other geographical markets and develop closer relationships with their customers. The Empower assistance offers funding to help businesses to develop quality websites that will allow new customers to buy your goods and access your services. This fund is available to those creating new websites or those commercialising their website.

The Empower grant aid includes:

1. Web-Site Development assistance of 50% of eligible expenditure up to a maximum grant of €1,250.
2. Domain Name Registration of up to €50 per business to register a domain name.
3. ISP Website Hosting assistance of up to €100 per business towards the first annual hosting contract cost.
4. eCommerce Specialist Software assistance of 50% of eligible expenditure on approved software up to a maximum grant of €500. This assistance is often used to develop a shopping cart to commercialise a website.

For any part or all of the various assistances that are available as part of this initiative you need to submit this form with three relevant quotes which specifically detail the work that is being done. For example if you are applying for Web site development and E-business training you need to ensure that both of these elements are stated in the quote and any future invoices.

Try our web suppliers list to see if you think some of their work matches your idea for your website. Please note that the list is a resource for our clients only to help them in their search for a web designer and is not an exhaustive listing of web designers in the area and in no way do we recommend any of these suppliers above those that are not listed. Listing is open to all Waterford based suppliers and we welcome all new additions. To be included in the listing the supplier needs to supply the best five website that they have designed to give you an idea of the type of work that they do. We do not engage in any form of quality assurance that is for you to do as part of your decision.

All websites funded under this programme from Waterford City Enterprise Board will have to include these logos version 1 or these logos version 2 which should link back to the Waterford City Enterprise Board website (http://www.waterfordceb.com) as part of the grant funding.

Useful Tip: If you have a website that's not performing for you perhaps you should try our Promote your Website programme? This programme is aimed at businesses who have an online presence and need to improve the traffic coming to the site or the level of business being generated when browsers visit the site. This programme offers a full analysis of the site, tips on how simple improvements can yield big rewards and training on promoting the website using Google adwords and other techniques. The programme is eligible for 80% funding leaving a usual cost to the participant of only €100.