By Patrick Avenell
Click Frenzy, the sale that stops a website, is back for another attempt at bettering mediocrity, launching a new Mother’s Day online sale frenzy scheduled for the evening of 23 April 2013.
The Click Frenzy concept was launched late last year to replicate the successful Cyber Monday, an American online sales holiday staged between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The local iteration, which charged retailers substantial sums to be involved, generated enormous press coverage in the lead up to its 20 November 2012 start date, only for its own website and those of participating retailers to crash due to weak infrastructure that was unable to handle the demand.
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“That fateful day is well behind us, and the coverage of the crash drew attention away from the true story of Click Frenzy – that it was Australia's biggest day of online shopping,” said a Click Frenzy spokesperson.
“We've listened, we've learned and we have been working extremely hard to put right any wrongs.”
A Mother’s Day Frenzy will be the first of several planned for 2013, the organisers say. There will also be frenzies for the End of Financial Year, Father’s Day and an E-Carnivale, whatever that is.
“Click Frenzy events centralise hundreds of the absolute best online deals in one location for one frenzied 24 hour period,” said the spokesperson.
“Customers can search for deals across a user-friendly online marketplace built to withstand enormous concurrent traffic volumes.
“Search by category, brand, product name, item or just browse the unbelievable range of deals to be had. Both shoppers and retailers in Australia have never seen anything like Click Frenzy, and all will benefit.”
It is true that nobody had ever seen anything like Click Frenzy. Such was its short-lived impact on the retail zeitgeist, the normally conservative team at The Good Guys mocked it, it spawned a Downfall parody and prompted patronising sales tips from Catch of the Day.
Click Frenzy’s return for Mother’s Day is likely to interest small appliance retailers, such as previous participants Bing Lee and Myer, as well as David Jones, which conducted a concurrent, unaffiliated online sales event on the night of the original Click Frenzy.
An online sales ever is also likely to place more pressure on average sales prices. Small appliances, the most popular type of appliance at Mother's Day, has been one of the more resilient categories, due largely to constant technological innovations, the rise of popular cooking TV shows and a greater focus on marketing instead of discounting.
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Click Frenzy describes itself as the “sale that stops the nation”, comparing itself to the phrase used to describe the Melbourne Cup. The correct expression is ‘the race that stops a nation’.
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