LeftClick Doubles in Staff and Turnover

LeftClick Doubles in Staff and Turnover as E-Retailers Exploit Online Buying Frenzy

LeftClick Labs, a Christchurch post click conversion firm housed at the Canterbury Innovation Incubator, has doubled in size and turnover in the last year, and expects to double again in 2008 due to overwhelming demand for its services.

Since the company was established three years ago, LeftClick has grown 600% from 1 to 6 FTE’s and is looking to hire up to 6 more staff in response to an explosion in online shopping.

New Zealand businesses are waking up to the fact that one tenth of the world’s population is now shopping online with Internet sales increasing by as much as 25% per year. Last year, Kiwis alone spent more than $1.5 billion on goods and services over the Internet with 1.25 million of us now shopping online – an increase of 400% in 5 years (Nielson Media survey). Expectations are that New Zealand will reflect overseas trends with up to 5% of retail sales conducted online.

Wealthy web-savvy customers are increasingly on the lookout for good quality products and services, and by doing so they are creating a market that is forcing e-retailers to address and pander to the human online buying psyche.

“Business websites that do little more than act as glorified brochureware are being left behind for more “customer-centric” sites purposefully designed to engage shoppers and meet all their needs,” says LeftClick Director Alan Cox.

By improving the customer-experience, LeftClick is helping web owners to make their websites more accountable. The company has a successful track record of using its proven web analysis and usability techniques to turn web-traffic into leads and increase sales conversion rates by well over 50%.

“Website usability looks at all aspects of the user experience of a site such as layout, content, navigation, and features. Our ‘post click conversion’ services make our customers’ websites’ far more attractive to shoppers. Successful shopping sites work well because they are designed to be easy to use and are appealing to customers who visit time and time again,” says Cox.

“By and large customers will buy online when they find a website that meets their expectations. For e-retailers, the question is no longer how do I get my site noticed, but how do I get my visitors to buy from my site and not my competitor’s? E-retailers can get much more from their online channel by simply making their website more customer-focussed.”

What makes LeftClick services so successful is understanding how people engage online. By identifying and eliminating where people get frustrated and leave a site, LeftClick helps e-retailers to make their website more appealing to customers.

One e-retailer that has noticed significant improvements since getting LeftClick on board is online computer and electronic equipment retailer PC Universe, head-quartered in Florida.

With lower than average conversion rates, high bounce rates on key pages, and ‘undesirable levels of cart abandonment’, PC Universe recognised they needed help and chose LeftClick’s ClickShift service.

ClickShift significantly increases conversion rates by taking the site to a whole new level of customer satisfaction. The programme incorporates website analytics, customer-experience testing, expert evaluation and web redesign and is aimed at getting results quickly whilst at the same time keeping things really simple for the business. For many online marketers post click conversion services like ClickShift are the missing link, by providing increased value from their online marketing expenditure.

“The focus is changing,” says Cox. “It’s not about the number of web hits, but about how to convert online visitors into value for the business.”

Since applying LeftClick’s improvements, PC Universe’s conversion rates went up by 110%, with marked increases in average order values, customer retention and profit. The revamped site later won the Web Marketing Association’s prestigious Standard of Excellence Award.

“At the end of the day, it’s about taking ownership of what really matters and that’s to do whatever it takes to design a site that really drives conversions and revenue,” says Cox. “The challenge is knowing who your customers are before designing a solution that meets their specific needs.”

LeftClick is also making significant differences for a number of local businesses – and not just with post click conversation. Having its own customer experience testing laboratory in-house, LeftClick can conduct live tests of business websites with real people to see how customers relate to their site. Most businesses learn a lot from this experience and recognise the importance of creating the right content and features that meet the needs of their customers or target audience.

About LeftClick Labs

LeftClick Labs was established in 1994 by Director Alan Cox and today has 6 staff based in its offices at the Canterbury Innovation Incubator. The company provides evaluation and design services aimed at making e-business websites more successful through increasing persuasiveness and customer satisfaction. LeftClick solutions are based on smart measurement and analysis; effective optimisation processes; business-outcome focused design; and years of experience. The company is in the process of developing, with the view to commercialising, an innovative measurement and testing framework that underpins its solutions. Visit www.leftclick.com.

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