Today ebuyer.com, the computer and technology etailer, launched a £1 clearance giveaway. As they hoped, the demand was high but perhaps they didn't expect their capacity constraints to bring the entire site down with such a bang!

Within minutes of the website stalling, eBuyer.com found a tirade of critical posts on their facebook page and I'm sure a number of their staff scratching their heads saying "why didn't we spot this as a possible issue?"

The fact is, just because your website runs well in your normal day-to-day opperations, before you embark on a significant scale in demand, you must be sure your services can cope. Cloud based hosting is an option, the cloud gives you the flexibility to scale as your demand increases and scale back when demand reduces. Often such changes to capacity can be tweaked in realtime meaning no reboots or significant outage times.

eBuyer.com, we hope you manage to the fix the issue quickly and as always are more than happy to assist your scalability in the future so such problems don't happen again.

On May the 26th, a new law comes into effect that governs how website's use and store 'Cookie' data online. (We apologise for the following joke) A law that's certainly set to... make the cookie crumble.

If you're not aware of what a Cookie file is, it's a small, sometimes encrypted text file that lives in browser directories, that are used by web developers to store information about people who visit their websites. While this sounds sinister, it's really not. They're used, for instance, to store information on products you've added to your basket on an eCommerce store. For more information about Cookies, go to All About Cookies.

What do the new laws mean for you?

The new laws essentially mean that web developers have to gain consent from their users before they can utilise cookies, but the first thing to remember is to not worry too much about it, as it's certainly not worth panicking about, at least not yet.

The second thing to do, is to have a look at what cookies are utilised on your site, and what they're doing. Some cookies are exempt from the legislation "if storing cookies is strictly necessary for a service requested by the user." For example, if you run an ecommerce site, storing cookies is necessary for an item to be kept in a customer's basket.

For users signing up to an online account, you can put some text in the Terms and Conditions that the user expressly allows the website to utilise cookies, and you can also do this on login pages.

The ICO have released a comprehensive PDF about the new EU Cookies Law (PDF) that we highly recommend taking a look at!

I met with an old friend, soon to be client, the other day at his shop. The guy’s been running retail shops longer than I’ve known the meaning of retail. Anyhow, he really knows his stuff; he was telling me that he moved one of the cash desks the other day because there wasn’t enough space for customers to get through, plus if he moved it to the lower left corner he could get another 2 sets of shelves in etc, etc…

While telling me all of this he notices a small mark on a carpet tile, I’m not kidding, 10 feet away! "We need to get that cleaned or replaced" he barks while pointing at this dot! Anyhow, I guess his attention to detail and knowledge of his domain was really impressive to me, he has retail in his DNA.

The flip side to this is his website, not quite the same authority at all. Misshapen images, products with no descriptions or very poorly written ones. Categories duplicated and in some areas over 5 levels of navigation. And don’t get me started on the checkout process! I mean, does he want to sell anything? "Am I adding to basket or to the cart? Are they the same? I don’t know, let’s see! Ah, what’s this, I need to login first, ok, I’ll create an account then. Why exactly do you need my credit card to allow me to add something to my basket? I mean cart! Oh, whatever!"

But that’s not the worse part at all! Search good ol' Google for his business name, and his website comes below the fold at position 6 or 7. We can only guess his products are visible to the "page 10 brave".

The shame of it is that we see this kind of situation so often. Experienced business people that understand their realm of commerce so well, but when it comes to launching their Internet empire, they are convinced they can do it alone, with no prior experience or guidance. However, that in itself is not the issue. I’m all for self development and taking responsibility for your business’s progression. However, this is not the case. None of these sites are updated or have had any attempt made to make them better. The same problems exist online and offline, if someone has a bad experience in a shop, they are likely not to return and, online, the same applies.

Those old-school retailers with retail DNA coursing through their very being, need to find a way to have the Internet DNA spliced with theirs. And until they can, they need to find someone, or some- team, that can truly drive their online ambitions home.