CEO of the Year, 2021 – York, United Kingdom

PureClarity started from a passion for AI and e-commerce and was established to deliver a truly personalised onsite experience for e-commerce businesses. We spoke to company CEO, Rachel Swann in light of her CEO of the Year 2021 awards success.

PureClarity’s software as a service emulates the best instore experience and tailors the individual online shopping journey into a mutually engaging conversation between browser and merchant, serving up real-time personalised content. This means browsers get to engage with things they’re interested in, seeing only relevant content, and customers enjoy significantly increased conversion from browser to buyer, increased average order and basket values, a higher number of items per basket, and more loyal customers.

The customers particularly rave about PureClarity’s onboarding process, expertise and insight.  This involves working with – rather than against or for – the customers.  PureClarity asks the client questions, while actively listening to the answers, around what success looks like for them, how they’re going to measure it, and how they’re going to report and quantify success. It is a straight-talking and transparent company, which reflects its easy-to-use and -understand product.

Rachel said, “We used to be product-led, based on extensive e-commerce knowledge, which means that the product really does what it should, every time, it is scalable and, frankly, absolutely amazing. For the last year, we’ve been market-led, really listening to what our audience is really looking for.

“During 2021, our customer base has grown significantly, across all our go-to market routes, and our monthly recurring revenue has increased by 166% as a result; our customers are in the UK, the US, Ireland and mainland Europe, and cover B2B and B2C.  We’re specifically working closely with the SME audience, enabling them to – directly and successfully – compete alongside the ubiquitous e-commerce giants. We have a great product, a great proposition and great people – both our customers and our team, and our customers tell us we are trustworthy and supportive – and truly innovative.”

Rachel joined the company in November 2020, in a lockdown, so it was about three or four months before she actually met anyone in person. She said regarding meeting her colleagues in person for the first time, “So, I think the fact we all really did have legs was a surprise. We have been able to use video meetings to our advantage, and using different tools for different types of team engagement was really helpful, so for example, we use zoom for more ‘official’ meetings, and slack for more ad hoc, one-on-one chats. It has also meant that actually meeting people in person, including people we’ve recruited – remotely – has become something really special and we get more out of our ‘in real life’ meetings than we may have done previously.

“The flexibility that this gives our team, especially around childcare and school runs, for example, has meant that people have really actively engaged in making the business market- and customer-led, to great success. So much so that we are seeing an amazing opportunity for us to take PureClarity truly global and continuing its growth trajectory.”

Rachel’s journey with PureClarity has been a year of high-speed excitement, and now, on the cusp of company-changing investment, she is so excited to take the company to new levels. She said, “This is my first official role as CEO and it’s been exhilarating to start realising the vision for the business. I suspect many people will hear voices of self-doubt and see challenges, so to be where we are is fabulous. As for where this takes me personally, who knows? But I do know that my energy isn’t expended yet. People will read articles and meet CEOs who are passionate. Come and chat to us; let us show you what real passion is – we’ve got an amazing product that delivers amazing results, an amazing proposition, an amazing customer base, and an amazing team and we can prove it. I don’t know how many people can genuinely say that and know it’s really true.”

Indeed, PureClarity has seen significant growth this year, in numbers and in stature, and is set for a period of yet more growth, aiming to quadruple its annual recurring revenue by the end of 2022 and more than trebling that by 2023. PureClarity is using personalisation in e-commerce to continue to deliver revenue benefits for all parties.

For business enquiries, contact Rachel Swann from PureClarity Ltd via email – [email protected] or on their website – www.pureclarity.com