Electronic giant Kogan has hit back at Click Frenzy’s cease-and-desist letter, accusing the organiser of the online sales event of caring more about profits than delivering the best deals to shoppers.
Ruslan Kogan, founder and chief executive of Kogan.com, has lashed out over Click Frenzy’s registered trademark of the words ‘Click Frenzy’.
“While this is certainly a laudable achievement, we do question whether the registration of this trademark grants a monopoly to Click Frenzy over online frenzies, clicking or any other form of sale activity,” Kogan said.
“In our view, no one person or company should be able to monopolise either frenzies or clicking.”
Kogan is not the first retailer to jump on the event unofficially, last year David Jones launched a ‘Christmas Frenzy’ to run alongside the Click Frenzy event.
Kogan said if Click Frenzy was “truly” committed to driving local ecommerce it would be happy another retailer was running a sale.
“Unfortuantley, the fact that Click Frenzy is upset with Kogan’s offers seems to imply that Click Frenzy cares more about profiting from an Online Sales Day than it does about ensuring shoppers get the best deals possible.”
A national online sales day should be an organically generated event which, like the Boxing Day sales or Christmas sales, is not owned by any organisation, Kogan added.
“We’re hoping to convince other retailers to put forward their best offers too independently of some central managed body, which merely tries to profit off the sale event.”
The dispute erupted after Kogan launched its Kogan Frenzy sale 12 hours before last night’s Click Frenzy event kicked off.
Click Frenzy’s organiser Grant Arnott reportedly sent the etailer a cease-and-desist letter over Kogan’s use of the term ‘Click Frenzy’ to market its ambush event.
Retailers taking part in the ‘official’ Click Frenzy sale include Target, Woolworths, Myer, Bonds and many more.
Ruslan Kogan's full statement is below:
"Click Frenzy's attempt to own the concept of an Online Sales Day would be the same as Harvey Norman trying to own the concept of a Boxing Day Sale. These sales events should happen organically with retailers responding to consumers' needs.
In the same way that Boxing Day sales started happening organically, because all retailers had excess stock after Christmas, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the US grew organically with retailers independently electing to promote sales on these days, we can have similar initiatives in Australia too, and we’re hoping to convince other retailers to put forward their best offers too independently of some central managed body, which merely tries to profit off the sale event.
The online retail industry in Australia is big enough that it can sustain a huge day of discounting without a central body – retailers should band together to put their best foot forward for customers, on a single day event for online shopping. No one company should own Christmas Sales, Boxing Day Sales, or Online Sales events – these events are not any individual person's or company's for the taking, they are "owned" by the shopping community in general.
This day is all about the shoppers. It’s all about the best deals. The deals available at Kogan speak for themselves – we encourage all shoppers to compare online and save. We're confident Kogan's Frenzy deals are much better than anything promoted through Click Frenzy.
We congratulate Click Frenzy on achieving a registered trademark over the words Click Frenzy. While this is certainly a laudable achievement, we do question whether the registration of this trademark grants a monopoly to Click Frenzy over online frenzies, clicking or any other form of sale activity.
In our view, no one person or company should be able to monopolise either frenzies or clicking. It is a basic right of online shoppers to click frenziedly, when seeking to take advantage of a hot online deal, and all online retailers should be free to offer awesome deals at any time of their choosing.
If Click Frenzy is truly an organisation devoted to establishing a day of awesome online sales, then they should be happy that Kogan is offering great deals right now. Unfortunately, the fact that Click Frenzy is upset with Kogan's offers seems to imply that Click Frenzy cares more about profiting from an Online Sales Day than it does about ensuring shoppers get the best deals possible.
An Online Sales Day should be an organically generated event, like Boxing Day Sales, where all online retailers independently decide to promote awesome offers. Awesome deals generate frenzied clicking, and not the other way around.”
