Australians Rage At Click Frenzy Over Late Emails, Poor Service

Click Frenzy, one of the biggest online sales days on the Australian calendar, has come and gone for another year. The promise of crazy prices – a $10 55-inch 4K LG TV among them – had customers in a spin ready to thrown their wallets at their screens. The reality has been something a little more sobering. The deals have been hard to come by, Click Frenzy’s emails have been delivered late and customers have been fighting poor internet speeds and a terrible user interface on the Click Frenzy website.

I’ve been live blogging the Click Frenzy sale, which kicked off last night at 7pm, for the better part of six hours now and the general sentiment I’ve been seeing online is one of anger and disappointment.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/live-blogging-click-frenzy-to-find-the-best-deals/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/05/Click-Frenzy-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Live Blogging Click Frenzy To Find The Best Deals” excerpt=”We’re here, live blogging the Click Frenzy sales taking place from 7pm AEDT tonight. I don’t know that I can last the full 24 hours, but jump in and see what kind of deals we’re tracking down from Australia’s biggest online sale (so far!)”]

Click Frenzy hasn’t been plagued with problems like it was in 2012, when the site came to a grinding halt under the weight of a rampaging Australian web presence, but the experience of using the website has left a bad taste in many mouths.

For the uninitiated: Click Frenzy is offering eight unbelievably priced items at up to 99% off. These deals are known as their ‘GO WILD’ deals and are only available for a short time. To get them, you need to be on a specific part of the Click Frenzy store at a specific time and click on a pop up banner ad. It’s an infuriatingly mundane task and takes dedication and patience to take full advantage of.

Compounding the problem is the fact that to find out where the deal will be you need to wait to receive an email from Click Frenzy with the instructions. Last night, on both occasions, I received the Click Frenzy email after the deals had already finished. I never had a chance to take advantage of them!

The emails have been a sticking point for many online:

Once you’ve got the email and then found where the banner ad will be, it doesn’t get any easier. You then need to find the Discount Code box, which is hidden in a drop down box during the checkout process. This process often leaves customers in the lurch when they click through on the GO WILD deals and find that they’re about to pay full RRP for their product instead of the discounted rate because they don’t know where to put the Discount Code in. So they refresh the page and by then, it’s too late to take advantage of the deal.

However, it’s Click Frenzy’s silence that is the most galling.

The lack of transparency and communication is irksome at best, but at worst, it could result in customers paying more than they anticipated when it comes to check out.

For an online shopfront like Click Frenzy, the user experience should be the most important aspect. It’s disappointing to see that Click Frenzy not only make it difficult to redeem the 99% off deals, but also refuse to respond to customers via their Twitter or Facebook accounts. There are hundreds of tweets and Facebook comments coming through – so I understand that it would be difficult to get through to them all, but so far, I haven’t seen Click Frenzy give a thoughtful reply to any of them.

Of course, you have to expect that the 99% off deals are in extremely limited supply, so attempting to nab one is going to be hard work – you’re competing against some two million consumers (maybe not at once but over the journey). It’s just that Click Frenzy certainly haven’t made it easy.

I’ll be live-blogging as much of the Go Wild deals as I possible can today, so jump over and have a look. There’s still big ticket items ready to go – like that fabled 55” $10 TV. Get ready for it.

And if you missed out on all these deals, don’t get too sad. Amazon Australia’s imminent launch is likely going to sate your bargain-hunting needs.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/amazons-australian-launch-new-details-revealed/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/03/Amazon-Shopping-410×231.jpg” title=”Amazon’s Australian Launch: New Details Revealed!” excerpt=”Amazon Australia has laid out its plans during a marketplace summit in Sydney. We finally have some firm details about the launch, including a delivery time promise. Here’s what you need to know!”]


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