LONDON (Alliance News) - ATTRAQT Group PLC began trading on AIM Tuesday, having raised GBP1.25 million ahead of admission through a private subscription at 50 pence per share.
Shares in ATTRAQT, which software-as-a-service to online retailers, were trading up 8.9% at 54.475 pence Tuesday afternoon.
Based on the subscription price, the company has a market capitalisation of around GBP10.3 million. ATTRAQT hopes that its AIM listing will help raise its profile, which will better position it to attract, recruit and retain key employees.
The company provides an online merchandising platform called Freestyle Merchandising, which acts as an overlay to a retailer's own website and enhance the customer's experience.
ATTRAQT has clients including Boohoo.com PLC, Supergroup PLC, and BT Group PLC. It cites the rapid growth of online retail as a driver, but also the need for retailers to capitalise on the shifting market.
"Retailers, particularly merchandisers, have been trained in certain merchandising techniques that they deploy in store," Chief Executive André Brown told Alliance News. "It's very difficult to do that in the online world."
Retailers are looking for ways to quickly tailor their sites to trends and to optimise their online revenues and retain customers, amongst other growth strategies.
"Going to mobile is a big one. We've got a lot of clients that have mobiles sites, and they're looking for sites which have what they call responsive web design. So you're essentially getting the same merchandising experience regardless of what device you're using," Brown explained.
Additionally, Brown cited the growing trend of having in-store tablets and kiosks, to combine online and brick-and-mortar offerings.
This includes both tablets in store, on which customers can look at the entire catalogue of products, not just the products displayed on shelves, but also tablets for store assistants so that they can take an online order to be picked up in store at a later date, for example.
"Another big trend we're seeing is the move to internationalisation," Brown told Alliance News. Many big retailers are looking to launch international sites, which then have to be tailored for the audience, changing the native language, and in the case of some sites such as those in Australia, to alter the seasonality of the products available.
Presently 42% of ATTRAQT's clients are in the fashion segment, although it also has clients in jewellery and watches, sports clothing and accessories, amongst others.
"Fashion is probably the most trend-concious segment in retail, so when we show merchandisers our technology they get it immediately," Brown said. "They realise the power of it is their ability to respond very, very quickly to changes in trend or market conditions or so on."
Another growing segment is the Do-It-Yourself market, with recent clients such as ScrewFix, part of the Kingfisher PLC group, who are less concerned about handling shifting trends so much as having a very large catalogue and helping consumers to locate specific products.
ATTRAQT is planning to use the funds from its initial public offering to expand its US sales team, increase its marketing, and extend the functionality of its platform and develop new products.
The US is a big target for the company; it recently opened a sales office in New York, and hired three local sales people who started in December 2013. It signed up its first new US client in March, and a second in April. It has 81 prospects in its sales pipeline in the US, it said.
"In terms of being able to scale the business up there's a much bigger opportunity there," Brown explained.
Beyond the US, the company is looking at Europe, although it probably will approach that region through partners, India, China, and Brazil. However Brown said the company does not want to be "distracted" at this stage and is primarily focused on the UK and US in the short term.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
