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A Feast for Business

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Irish companies, especially those that do substantial business in the U.S., are becoming increasingly conscious of the way the festival can be used to boost profits, raise awareness and pry open doors that might otherwise remain shut.
“I saw statistics recently about the massive number of people who plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and the numbers who intend to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day,” Ruairi Curtin, vice president of Enterprise Ireland’s New York office, said recently.
“What that translates into is sales of merchandise for Irish companies. I don’t think there is any other country that has that kind of opportunity.”.
Recently, development bodies like Enterprise Ireland, and Irish businesspeople themselves, have made a concerted effort to maximize the benefits that St. Patrick’s Day can yield. Curtin points to his organization’s involvement in the 24-hour Irish special televised on March 17 by shopping channel QVC — an event that is now becoming well established.
Last year, Enterprise Ireland helped fund focus groups that guided the channel and retailers alike toward determining what kind of products QVC’s viewers were most interested in buying.
Barbara Campbell, sales and marketing director for Fragrances of Ireland, estimates that her company, which sells lotions and soaps in addition to its core product of Irish perfume, has an annual turnover of approximately $3.5 million, of which about a third is generated by sales in the U.S.
“We would really push at this time of year, in terms of promotion and so on,” she said. “The whole atmosphere is very favorable — retailers are much more prepared to give you window space, for example. We get a huge amount of good will.”
Campbell said that her company sees a spike in sales each year around St. Patrick’s Day, the magnitude of which is surpassed only in the run-up to Christmas. The Irish festival is more lucrative than other, apparently more obvious annual highlights for a fragrance company such as St. Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day.
The boost is particularly welcome at a time of year when the retailing climate would otherwise be cool.
“January would be a very dead time in Ireland for us, but that’s the time that we ship so much to the U.S.,” Campbell said.
Alan Clancy is the U.S. sales representative of Shanore Jewelry, which is based in Dublin. Clancy said that “about 95 percent” of Shanore’s sales in this country come through specialty Irish stores.
“For most of the stores, St. Patrick’s Day is like a little Christmas in springtime,” Clancy said. “A lot of them use it just to sell more and, for us, the big benefit is simply the increase in passing traffic.”
Clancy also noted what he saw as an increasing tendency by the broader retail industry to turn St. Patrick’s Day into more of “a gift-giving holiday” than it has been by tradition.
Barbara Campbell agreed. “Now you have retailers like Wal-Mart seeing that there is an opportunity around St. Patrick’s Day for them to increase sales,” she said. “In our case that isn’t so important because we are more niche-orientated — and there are no shamrocks on our packaging. But it is definitely a trend.”
Many people also believe that Ireland’s image offers Irish products a business advantage. Specifically, it seems that the perception of Ireland as synonymous with spirituality and “heart” is becoming increasingly valuable in the marketplace.
“I don’t want to sound too cheesy about this, but when you’re selling an Irish product, you are selling an emotion much of the time,” Clancy said. “And here, in the U.S., people are very keen to have an identity. So something like an Irish wedding band is something that is very emotional, it speaks of a serious emotional connection.”
It is not possible to quantify with any accuracy how much St. Patrick’s Day is worth to Irish businesses. But businesspeople themselves are in no doubt about its benefits:
“This time of year really helps to get us known, to get our foot in the door, to get people to listen to what we have to say,” Campbell said. “For us, it’s priceless.”

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