The domain names .cymru and .wales are now among the top ten most popular European geographic domains for online business, alongside those for London, Berlin and Paris.

Evans Pharmacy is one of Wales’ largest home-grown pharmacy chains with 12 pharmacies spanning across all of South Wales, including three near Newport.

IT manager for Evans Pharmacy Cameron Nazemi said: “We’ve seen a huge growth in technology in pharmacy and we want to make sure that Wales is not only keeping up with these advancements but taking a lead.

"Having an online presence is critical to that and using a .wales domain name was the perfect choice for us. Our business is Welsh and proud and the domain helps us show how proud we are of our identity and where we were established.

"Our customers love that our web address is so patriotic and it’s made us more popular than our competitors locally; they want to support the local company with 'wales' in its web address. We’re always growing and the .wales domain is now a great part of it.”

Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet, which runs the .cymru and .wales domains, said: “There are many benefits of being online such as increased brand awareness and securing new business. Word of mouth and recommendations are great but increasingly potential clients want to ‘try before they buy’ and in many circumstances this means having a look at your website as part of their decision-making process.

"For those businesses who want to underline their Welsh connection or heritage, having a .cymru or .wales domain name is the perfect way to demonstrate their Welsh credentials to the world.”

Jayne Kendall, Wales product manager at Nominet, said: “Many business owners assume that running a website is complicated and expensive but this is no longer true. It is now very easy to set up professional-looking website due to improvements in web-based tools and apps for building a website. The days of needing to pay a website designer or having a specialist knowledge in coding are gone. It’s also very affordable, with website builder and hosting packages giving businesses a platform to reach millions of potential new customers for as little as the cost of a cup of coffee each month.”