Partners Fergal Rigby and Paula McCarthy have set up an online business focusing on selling trendy wellies called WellyHeaven.ie in the run up to Electric Picnic.
The site stocks a range of styles, including polka dots and leopard print, as well as the Wedge Wellies that were featured on RTE’s Dragons’ Den.
In May of this year, McCarthy wanted to buy a pair of wellies as a present for a friend, and realised there is little choice in the Irish market to buy a high quality, funky pair.
“Armed with my knowledge of the online business world and together with Paula’s passion for finding stylish and fashionable wellies, we identified the gap in the market, and decided to just go for it and launched WellyHeaven.ie. The site was live within four weeks of initially coming up with the idea,” said Rigby.
Rigby specialised in e-commerce while studying at Dublin City University, while McCarthy has studied and worked in marketing and advertising.
The site is aimed to appeal to festival goers, people who love the outdoors and, according to Ribgy, more and more people see a genuine need for wellies because of the terrible weather Ireland has been having.
A fashion requirement at festivals
“We are seeing that lots of people buy them as presents for friends, and thankfully for us, wellies are now being seen as a fashion requirement for concerts,” he said.
“We are now gearing up for Electric Picnic. There are hundreds of festivals all year round – namely, nine months of the year but going on our recent research the winter will be a busy period, too. Last year, a large UK company selling wellies sold a pair of wellies every nine seconds during the six weeks of cold weather,” noted Rigby.
From a marketing perspective, the company is very active on Twitter and Facebook and recently launched the WellyHeaven.ie Facebook store, offering larger discounts for fans of its Facebook page.
Photo: Fergal Rigby and Paula McCarthy, co-founders of WellyHeaven.ie
Article courtesy of Bizstartup.ie
