A Belfast web development firm is celebrating after one of its websites received a top award from Google.

Laposa Ltd, based in Howard Street, created the JING Tea website, which recently won Google’s Best of British Web competition.

The website is designed and managed on the Onxshop content management and eCommerce system, which was created in-house by Laposa.

The competition was judged by a panel of experts based on several criteria, including web design, usability and content.

The company’s Czech-born lead developer Norbert Laposa said: “It is a great honour that one of our websites has been recognised by Google.

“We always aim to create sites that our clients are happy with, but for it also to be recognised by industry experts as best practice in the sector is particularly pleasing.”

Onxshop does have Northern Irish clients, but the majority of its users are based in England. The system is already in use on around 40 business websites, and other sites - including the Waitrose website - were built using Onxshop.

Norbert is hoping that the emergence of a local e-commerce platform will encourage more local businesses to expand their business online.

He added: “Northern Ireland businesses have been a bit slower to recognise the potential of selling online. With Onxshop, Northern Ireland can take the lead in e-commerce software development not only in the UK, but also worldwide.

“It is a relatively low cost way for retailers to expand their business and a great way for new businesses to enter the market.”

Onxshop’s combined CMS and e-commerce package provides one of the simplest options currently available on the web for combining traditional website content management and selling online.

Editor’s notes

Onxshop is an e-commerce content management system, which is free for web developers to download and use in their own projects and is also available in hosted packages from Laposa Ltd.

The Onxshop platform has been operating since 2002. In that time it has processed more than 50,000 e-commerce transactions worth more than £1.5 million.

Google’s Best of British Web competition was launched in May this year. A judging panel selected the UK’s best small business websites from seven industry sectors: travel, transport, professional services and B2B, health and beauty, hospitality, retail, and trade and manufacturing. JING Tea’s website won in the retail category.