Tom Murphy formal wear and menswear was once the Lord Mayor of Cork’s residence before Tom Murphy Senior purchased it in the 1930s. It naturally evolved when his son Michael developed the tailoring side of the business and, in his time, it became firmly established as one of Cork’s leading suit business. The dress hire business also began to grow and it is now firmly established as a key part of the overall business. As well as selling suits and tailoring, Tom Murphy’s is a leading supplier of men’s casual wear.

Our website was established 5 years ago and it had an immediate impact. The first surprise was the numbers of people living abroad (mainly the UK and the US) whom were returning to Cork to get married. At this time our site was like an online catalogue and it served its purpose well because we received a number of bookings online for suits for wedding parties that were residing in other countries. Of course now the website is much more than an online catalogue.

The decision to go transactional was made earlier in the year. We always felt we had a core range of products that would be of interest to people outside of our own city. The initial investment in the website was significant but it has already started to reap dividends. The idea behind the online store was basically to offer a kind of one stop shop for men’s wedding attire. Many of the products like shirts, suits, and ties are aimed at the people attending a wedding. Equally important are the products targeted at the groom such as shirts for the groom, shoes and designer wedding wear. Obviously there is an overlap between the two and what might be of interest to the groom might also interest someone attending a wedding.

As well as offering all of those products for sale in our online store, we also offer a suit hire section. This is a key part of our business and all of our current 2010 wedding and evening wear collection can be viewed in the suit hire section of the website.