How Click Frenzy supports Australian business of all locations and sizes
Global Marketplace — owner of Click Frenzy, Power Retail and Click Central — responds to Sarah Britz’s opinion piece, published last week.
The following article is in response to the SmartCompany article by Sarah Britz, owner of Spend With Us.
Global Marketplace — owner of Click Frenzy, Power Retail and Click Central — is a small Australian business proud of the ways in which it supports Australian retail. Whilst we respect Sarah Britz’s right to her opinion, we think it is important for readers to understand some facts around our company.
Click Frenzy was established in 2012 when we identified a global trend with mega sales events that were ultimately destined to come to Australia. Now, 10 years later, these global sales events are part of the changing and growing e-commerce landscape in Australia and the world, such as Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Singles Day and Amazon Prime Day.
Competing for attention in these global sale events is mostly beyond small regional and rural businesses. E-commerce can be global, but also local, and Click Frenzy provides an affordable Australian owned platform for retailers and brands, small and large, local and national, regional and suburban, to grab the attention of Australian online shoppers.
We understand small businesses, with Global Marketplace emerging from a one-person business over 12 years ago to today employing 30 people, and a long track record of positive impact on retail.
The pandemic has changed shoppers behaviour forever with shoppers understanding the benefits and convenience of online shopping. Our Power Retail business guides small and large businesses on how to improve their online experience, including via a free newsletter that can keep all retailers up to date with the latest trends and important news in e-commerce in Australia.
Click Frenzy, via our sale events and other activities, provides a way for small businesses (which can sign up for as little as $99) to connect with our audience of over 1.7 million Australian online shoppers. This is a great brand discovery opportunity for small businesses to get exposure next to large retailers, and an opportunity to acquire new customers from across Australia, not just their local neighbourhood. This allows small businesses to grow and not be dependent on people shopping from their immediate neighbourhood or region.
We have had hundreds of small businesses over many years take up this entry level offer, taking their brands to all of Australia.
Giving back to the community
Global Marketplace has always been aware of the retail community we operate within and has actively given back to this community and our shoppers.
In March 2020, we ran a “Places in Need” Travel Event, which gave free advertising to areas devastated by the bushfires and floods of late 2019/early 2020.
Despite the pandemic starting, we ran the event as a loss-making venture to ensure we supported these regional and rural places in need. Every business affected was eligible. Over 60 small rural and regional businesses took up this offer of free advertising valued at over $60,000.
We also offered $100 cash back to shoppers who spent over $400 with these regional and rural businesses. We sent emails promoting these regional and remote businesses to over 1 million Australian online shoppers and we promoted these businesses to our 100,000+ social media followers.
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In January 2020, we saw the devastating impact of the bushfires and donated $20,000 to the Australia Red Cross Bushfire appeal.
In May 2020, we were humbled by the take up of our “Let’s Regrow” campaign. This campaign offered free advertising to small retailers in all regions — country and city — that were struggling with the onset of the pandemic. We had over 200 retailers participate, and we gave away more than $200,000 of free advertising to small businesses in need throughout Australia.
In August 2020, we were amazed at the generous people in our community who helped us raise more than $115,000 for local sporting clubs via our “Virtual Canteen” as part of our Sports Event. This included Click Frenzy directly donating more than $10,000 to local sporting clubs. We see this as a clear example that Australians want to support each other, and we were pleased to provide a platform to promote this.
Separately, as part of our commitment to support Australians in need, we are immensely proud of our extended partnership with National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) — where we donate 1% of revenue received by Global Marketplace to NBCF.
As an organisation, we actively support the ecosystem that we operate within and ‘walk the talk’ with these initiatives outlined above. We don’t make a song and dance about it, but we take objection to being singled out when we have consciously dedicated resources to support regional and rural businesses.
We will continue to support the businesses and people that make up the e-commerce ecosystem we operate in, as well as considering how as a business we can support the broader community.
