Left-handed stormtroopers fight for ecommerce site

An ecommerce website specialising in products for the left-handed has enlisted Star Wars stormtroopers as part of its sales arsenal.

The business was first established in 1968 as a shop in Soho and set up an ecommerce site in 2000. Around 13 per cent of the population is left-handed.

By last year the site - www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk - was responsible for 80 per cent of the business' turnover, so when the lease came to an end this summer the company became a purely online operation.

The company's director Keith Milsom explained: "We used to print a 28-page mail-order catalogue which was the main part of the business, but the cost of printing and mailing took quite a big part of the profit generated. With the internet it's so much easier, if we have a new product we can put it up on the site the same day.

"The turnover is more than double what is was for the shop and mail order combined, and the cost base is 20 per cent of what is used to be," he added.

The site runs on Actinic's ecommerce package, which Milson turned to when a deal to outsource development to a third party went wrong, forcing him to redevelop the whole site himself in two months. He is now happier to keep development in-house, saying: "the risk was just too much".

Being entirely online means Milson is keen to capitalise on unusual sources of traffic. For example, with the launch of the Star Wars prequels Milson found increased interest in Darth Vader's stormtroopers - all of which apparently appear left-handed because of the design of their blasters.

"People were coming onto the site because of the left-handed angle and then going off, so we built a page about left-handed stormtroopers - with a link to the shop and Google ads," he said. "We do that sort of thing every day."