William_Hartnell

Local company Care2Nurse involved in some, at best, fairly murky practices regarding relocation of healthcare workers to the Island and UK. Charging substantial fees and loans to relocate then paying below agreed rates of pay and housing in substandard accommodation. They appear to be doing the dirty work for larger UK agencies. i thought this sort of practice was stopped 10-15 years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/11/sold-a-dream-migrant-workers-at-childrens-care-chain-left-without-pay-for-months

Why do you have to laugh? I am no lover of the SP but who says Mezzeron or anyone will want to take the SP's place. Maybe they are happy just running two full container ships and bringing in one a day and do not want to get involved further. It is the old 80-20 rule. If they have 20% of the buiness that generates 80% of the profit will they or anyone one want the other 80% for the other 20% of profits. If the SP folded would anyone step in just to do the passenger traffic and the balance of the freight without a large hand out. Imagine you are in Government and the SP struggle on for 6 months and then knock on your door a couple of days before TT is due to start and say gice us X, Y & Z or we cancel tomorrows sailing and take our boats away tomorrow. What would you do? It may turn out all sweetness and light for the Island but I am worried that we might all get a good kicking first. I agree with everything you say there. I think that some people see the Norfolk Line and the like and wonder why the IOMSP are not doing what they do! It's simple economics, we are a small and comparatively insignificant island which needs a shipping service just like the one we have. That costs money and no company is going to do it for us just to break even. Yes there are things which could be improved about the SPC but they are pretty minor things in the grand scheme of things. Besause we live on an island it seems that some people resent the fact that it costs money to get on and off it? Well it's exactly the same for people wanting to get off the UK to the continent or Ireland, that ain't cheap any more either. Be careful, you may get what you wish for and the reallity is that it probably won't be any better! Norfolkline are an interesting company with several links to the Island through their parent company and senior management. If anything was to happen to the IoMSPC they are ideally positioned to take over existing routes through the existing fleet and ports. Don’t get me wrong they are far from perfect but have got a lot right in the past few years and at £30 Liverpool > Dublin footpassenger return in arguably superior accommodation compared with Packets fleet shows what can be done. I can see the Packet rumbling on for a couple more years yet. Passenger fares and smaller freight costs will increase to subsidise the larger freight contracts while costs are stripped back with the closing of the Heysham route and local redundancies. Irish routes will deteriorate to the bare minimum and continue at days and times which are completely useless to most taking us back to the infamous “use it or lose it quote” of a couple of years ago. As prices and service deteriorates companies like Norfolk line will smell blood and start circling on the opportunity to make a move, which user agreement or not will gain a lot of momentum and pressure from the public. I just hope the shred of tourism and TT races are not damaged beyond all repair in the headache which will be the next 18 months.

Not to mention the loss of Champs & Imps.

Thanks folks, they sound like good starting points for some research. Support shoulnt be to much of an issue, payment platform at present is simply cheques and PayPal so we'll also need a reliable gateway for cards.

Hello all. I’m after some advice and suggestions on an eCommerce solution. I’m basically helping “the wife” evolve her part-time eBay business into more of a professional and complete set-up. The objective is to set-up a ‘complete’ integrated solution including back-office, payment gateway, inventory control, logistics, accounts and possibly even templates integration into eBay. The quickest method to achieve all of this appears to be an off the shelf customizable eCommerce solution and I’ve done a bit of preliminary sniffing about but the choice of solutions and variation in price is an absolute minefield to get started with. I have a smattering of HTML and Dreamweaver experience but I don’t have the time or creative juices to knock something nice and shiny together and I say shiny as we’re after a professional site rather than using a something along the lines of Auctivia etc The business its self is low cost / high volume with a lot of product variation so there needs to be a nice simple streamlined product management system to save hours of scratching about. Aside from that a nice variety of customisable templates so it doesn’t look like the butcher’s armpit of a site I’d rustle up and we’re half way there. Finally, the integration into eBay would also be a massive plus as this is her businesses bread and butter and something she wishes to continue with to supplement the main store. Cost wise as I mentioned it’s part-time so we don’t shell out hundreds and as its low cost / high volume fare it has to be cost effective to budget in. Many thanks in advance folks.