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Black White Denim & Docnet Nail Their Colours To The Mast With New Online Site

Posted by Stephanie Fenton

New Wilmslow fashion boutique to help women create the foundations for an everlasting wardrobe.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Manchester e-commerce experts Docnet have teamed up with new Wilmslow based ladies fashion retailer Black White Denim to help them launch a powerful online presence.

The store, which opened it’s doors in September, only stocks women’s clothing in black, white or denim and is currently supported by an interactive landing page. Jo Davies, the brains behind the idea, wanted to stock classic pieces that could form the foundation for any stylish woman’s wardrobe. A total of 20 designers are showcased including By Malene Birger, Bolongaro Trevor, Lot 78 and J Brand Jeans. The collection also features clothing and accessories by up and coming designers, whose pieces were previously not available outside of London.

Docnet have used their flexible content management system to create up to date features such as the ‘Sign Him Up’ promotion. Women simply sign up their partners to ensure they get that Christmas present they really want. Their partners can chose from either a wish list or pieces chosen by Black White Denim based on order history. This helps Black White Denim to stay in touch with their existing customers and attract new ones, informing them of any promotions or events.

The current landing page, designed by Lou Poole of Germ, includes a 360-degree virtual tour of the store and gives consumers a real flavour of who Black White Denim are. The blog has up to date news about the progress of the new store and features some of the many press releases covering its opening. The fully transactional site is set to go live before the end of February 2011.

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Record 1,057 Parcels Shipped In Twelve Hours By Online Music Retailer - 10th December 2009

Posted by Gareth Cutter

Gear4Music is hitting all the right notes with its dynamic online store in the run-up to Christmas

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gear4Music, one of the UK’s largest online retailers of musical instruments passed a landmark in its company history on Monday. For the first time since it launched, it shipped over 1,000 orders in less than 12 hours (on average, about one every 41 seconds) through its web store, www.gear4music.com. This surge in orders reflects increasing consumer confidence in online retail and demonstrates how successful the most effective web sites can be.

Over the past two years, Gear4Music, who sell a wide range of musical instruments including electric guitars, orchestral instruments and drums has grown tremendously, more than doubling its annual turnover. From the end of 2007 to the present Gear4Music have increased sales from £4.4m to almost £10m per annum.

In addition to being one of the UK’s largest online musical instrument retailers, over the past year Gear4Music has sold and dispatched instruments to customers in countries all across Europe, including locations in Turkey, The Canary Islands, Estonia, Slovakia and Gibraltar. Gear4Music’s international reach has been growing steadily since it first launched in 2003 and continues to expand.

Gear4Music’s web site is designed and hosted by the Manchester-based full service e-commerce company Docnet, who also design and run web sites for winners of Drapers’ Independent Etailer of the Year 2009 Award, Sarah Coggles (www.coggles.com) and the UK distributor of award-winning Xen-Tan fake tan range, Skin Solutions Ltd (www.xen-tan.co.uk).

On passing this prestigious landmark, Gear4Music owner and Managing Director, Andrew Wass said, “Monday was a fantastic day for Gear4Music, and the signs are just as good for the rest of December. Christmas is always a very busy time of year for us - but the past few days have been exceptional. It is thanks to our innovative and highly successful web site that we’re able to ship as many instruments as we have.”

Managing Director of Docnet, Chris Maule added, “We are very pleased to see Gear4Music passing this milestone and are happy to have helped underpin their success. From the first parcel Gear4Music ever shipped to over 1,000 in a single day, it has been a pleasure to work with Andrew and his team. In turn, my team are 100% behind Gear4Music in helping them to sell their excellent product range online and we have exciting plans to help empower their future growth.”

www.gear4music.com

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Gear4Music:

Gear4Music’s mission is simple: to make purchasing and owning musical instruments and equipment easy for everyone by providing great prices and excellent service.

Founded and launched by Red Submarine Ltd in 2003, Gear4Music stocks over 6,500 musical instruments from over 300 internationally recognised manufacturers, as well as selling their own range of self-branded stock. The web site boasts over 140,000 registered customers who are able to book their own delivery date and arrange to receive email or SMS text updates on the progress of their orders.

Gear4Music also have a large showroom and exhibition centre based on the outskirts of York where customers can try the stock for themselves.

Docnet Manager Takes Home 'Man of the Match' from Old Trafford - 5th June 2009

Posted by Gareth Cutter

League Managers Association Raises Money for UNICEF UK with Charity Pitch Day Event

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The League Managers Association (LMA) hosted a charity pitch day at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium on Monday 1st June to raise funds for UNICEF UK, in which Manchester-based e-commerce firm Docnet took part.

Docnet’s Managing Director, Chris Maule and Business Development Manager, John Coyne (formerly of Wigan Athletic) took part in the match, playing on an away side made up of players from all over the country. They went head to head against a Grimsby based team wearing Man United’s home colours for the trophy.

Although the end result was 4-1 to the home team, Coyne was awarded ‘Man of the Match’ by the organisers in recognition of his exceptional performance. The away team was managed by Denis Smith, recently inducted into the LMA Hall of Fame 1,000 Club for managing his 1000th league game; former Man United striker Lou Macari managed the home team.

Shortly after the game, Coyne had the following to say about the event:

“It was a tough match and the heat made the conditions difficult, but every player gave 100% and knowing it was all going to a good cause ensured everyone stayed in good spirits. Playing at Old Trafford was a once in a life-time opportunity, and Chris and I felt very proud to be bringing a bit of Manchester to the game itself. I’d like to extend my congratulations to the winning team as they played exceptionally well.”

On the day, participants were welcomed by Manchester United Foundation Chief Executive, John Shiels, and introduced to their managers. A tour of the ground then took place followed by the match itself, complete with entrance onto the pitch through the players’ tunnel with match day soundtrack. The awards were handed out at the end of the game by Blackburn Rovers team manager, Sam Allardyce.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About League Managers Association (LMA):

The League Managers Association is the collective, representative voice of all managers from the Barclays Premier League, the Coca-Cola Championship and the Coca-Cola Leagues 1 and 2. Since its inception in 1992, the LMA has continued to develop its support and service offering to its members and its influence within the game.

About UNICEF UK:

UNICEF UK is one of 36 UNICEF National Committees. These National Committees raise funds for UNICEF’s worldwide emergency and development work. In 2007 UNICEF UK raised £41.3 million for UNICEF’s work with children worldwide.

UNICEF believes that every child should have clean water, food, health care, education, and a safe environment in which to grow up. UNICEF upholds the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and works to hold the international community responsible for their promises to children.

About Docnet:

Docnet is a full-service ecommerce provider. Based in Manchester, UK, Docnet’s services include ecommerce, email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) for SMEs and larger organisations.

Docnet believe in a service-led approach to e-commerce and online marketing, helping clients create workable strategies for online success and providing the tools and advice to achieve it. Success stories of the past include Sarah Coggles (winners of Drapers’ Independent Etailer of the Year Award), Waterstones, BAA and ARK Clothing.

Record Year Predicted for Digital Advertising Spend - 9th October 2008

Posted by Gareth Cutter

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Despite daily reports of a global financial crisis, recent figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau show online expenditure jumped 21% last year to £1.6bn despite tough trading conditions. This figure is likely to rise much further in 2008 as organizations decrease their spending on traditional advertising such as television and print, and turn their attention towards online advertising instead.

Chris Maule, the Managing Director at Doctor Net, believes the reasons for this growth can be attributed to a number of factors:

"The main difference between online marketing and traditional channels is accountability. You can track where every penny of your online investment goes. That kind of transparency you just don't get with TV or print advertising."

Digital advertising has a big role to play in the current economic climate and is responsible for advertising's overall growth as an industry: without it, market spend would actually have shrunk by 4.6%.

Maule continued, "Despite the slowdown in other advertising sectors, we continue to receive fresh enquiries from organizations keen to maximize their marketing spend. It's important for marketing professionals to be able to invest their budget correctly and to know exactly what they are getting for their money. From our point of view, there's nowhere to hide and the challenge is to ensure we are providing real value on returns for our clients."

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Doctor Net are a full-service e-commerce company based in Manchester, UK. In addition to e-commerce, Doctor Net provides online marketing and customer relationship management solutions to SMEs and large organisations.

I'm No 'Green' Criminal - 10th July 2007

Posted by Gareth Cutter

"A BUSINESSMAN was branded an environmental criminal by Manchester council - although he pays to recycle his firm's rubbish."

Chris Maule, managing director of e-mail marketing and software company Doctor Net, has been paying private recycling company Emerge Recycling to collect his waste - usually bags of shredded paper - for six months.

Specially-marked bags are left on the pavement outside the Fennel Street firm...." - Snippet from the Manchester Evening News on 10th July 2007.

Read the full article here

Ethical Agency Throws Out The Rubbish - 30th March 2007

Posted by Gareth Cutter

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UK e-commerce agency doing all they can to preserve the World-wide-planet

Full-service e-commerce company, Doctor Net have jumped well and truly onto the carbon balanced bandwagon and are currently working on 3 different projects that hold the environment's best interests at heart.

This year has seen the company team up with Recycling experts Emerge and event management agency Ethical Events. Ethical Events ongoing work with Save The Rhino has been well publicised and Doctor Net are continuing to support the marketing efforts for this campaign.

No stranger to helping out where they can Doctor Net became involved in the 'green initiative' a number of years ago when they developed GoinGreen's new car showroom - their e-commerce site. GoinGreen, now make the world's best selling electric car.

The partnership with Emerge has had an immediate effect on staff at Doctor Net who were shocked to find out that 1 billion Christmas cards ended up as waste in 2006. The team now recycle all paper and card which is collected as part of the Emerge's 'Daily Takeaway' service.

In addition to their ongoing campaign to get companies to send their marketing material by environmentally friendly emails they have come up with the following tips of how you can make a difference with just a small effort in the workplace;

1. Purchase and use recycled paper
2. Only print emails and documents if it is essential
3. Encourage staff to re-use and recycle paper rather than wasting
4. Re-use scrap paper
5. Issue company literature and documents internally and externally via email
6. Set targets and offer staff incentives to implement and promote waste minimisation
7. Set targets that can be measured - has your expense of purchasing paper decreased?
8. Set your printer to print on both sides of the paper by default as you will use less paper

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NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Doctor Net is a full-service e-commerce company providing e-commerce, online marketing and CRM solutions. http://www.doc-net.com/

2. Ethical Events are an event and corporate hospitality agency who contributes a proportion of their profit from each and every event to the client's chosen charity or to one of the Ethical Events supported charities. http://www.ethical-events.co.uk/

3. Emerge Recycling offer multi material collections from businesses and homes as well as Waste Consultancy and a Schools Recycling Programme. http://www.emergemanchester.co.uk/

Timelogging.com Goes Live - 11th February 2004

Posted by Gareth Cutter

Doctor Net's latest ASP, timelogging.com, went live today. The application is designed to increase the efficiency in small to medium sized work groups (10 - 250) by tracking activities against clients and projects.

"We've been using the application in house for some time now." commented Chris Maule, Managing Director of Doctor Net. "The increase in productivity has been excellent. I fully believe in the principal that to make better use of time, you need to analyse what you are doing and timelogging.com makes this process as painless as possible.

"This information can then be reported down to department heads so they can help their team get more out of their days. We've also found that timelogging.com creates a positive 'hustle' in the office and there have been few problems with take-up and staff ownership of the application."

And the cost of this progress? "£10+VAT per seat per month, which we believe is negligible when compared against staffing costs. Could you get five to ten hours more a month out of each of your team members for a tenner?"

Sign up for a free trial at http://www.timelogging.com/