Click Frenzy has left us 'internally damaged', say small retailers

SMALL retailers say they were the real victims of last night's failure because they were totally dependent on the crashed site.

SMALL retailers say they were the real victims of last night's Click Frenzy disaster because they were totally dependent on referrals from the crashed website.

While larger retailers such as Myer and Target have come out celebrating huge sales despite Click Frenzy's launch failure, lesser-known stores had thrown the majority of their resources behind the event only to be left "damaged internally".

Click Frenzy, which had been billed as the country's first national online sale event, was due to open from 7pm AEDT yesterday, but instead the website hosting the bargains collapsed under the weight of more than two million visitors.

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Nick Nicolaou, managing director of golights.com.au, said the effort and money he committed to Click Frenzy had gone to waste due to the website "not being able to deliver on their end of the deal".

"The bigger, more well-known retailers have managed to do fine regardless due to the organic traffic they are able to generate on the back of the Click Frenzy promotion," Mr Nicolaou said.

"Unfortunately we don't have that luxury and have therefore suffered exponentially more."

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Golights started up earlier this year and Mr Nicolaou said the retailer was planning on using Click Frenzy as a launching pad, with all staff working "around the clock" over the past month in the lead up to the event.

 "We went into overdrive and accelerated our plans for how much money we wanted to spend across the whole organisation," he said.

"We hired a full-time developer … and invested a lot of money in stock, the idea was to get everything ready and trade off the back of the traffic from their website.

"I think it's definitely damaged us internally."

Golights, which operates out of an office in inner-city Sydney with a warehouse in Eastlakes NSW, is hoping for a refund on the $1650 the business paid Click Frenzy for a basic listing.

Lou Davidson, general manager of Tamburlaine Organic Wines in the Hunter Valley, is also hoping for a refund and said she is disappointed the portal crashed last night.

"I think a lot of people were planning on shopping at 7pm last night and a lot of people were hoping to do it last night because they can't get on today at work," Ds Davidson said.

"We hoped this would get our brand out there to those who don't know us."

Ms Davidson said she also feels let down by the way the event was handled by organisers.

"They were telling us to be careful not to crash our website - well our website was fine, they were the ones with the problem."

Darren Craig, owner of the Golf Locker in Clarence Gardens South Australia, said he is disappointed with the way the damage control has been managed but largely sees Click Frenzy as a success.

"Given our online orders are normally in the single figures each day I'm currently up to about 58 orders," Mr Craig said.

"Being it's the first time, these things are going to happen, and I think for me it's a good result."

But Mr Craig said he would only be involved again next year if he received a discount to make up for the sales he missed when Click Frenzy was down last night.

Click Frenzy has been approached for comment.