Lush have shutdown their eCommerce site.

Lush.co.uk eCommerce site has been shutdown due to hackers attempting to gain access.
Lush have made the correct decision in shuting down their website so that they can find out how hacker have managed to access the site, even though the loss of revenue will be affecting their bottom line.

What this shows other Retailers is that they need to constantly test for security issues and hack attempts on their eCommerce sites. I know of very few retailers who have employees who's sole role is to validate security on their eCommerce site. If you have your eCommerce solution run by a partner then you should get your partner to validate your website for security problems.

Recommendation of things to do today:
1. Review all software and check for any security updates.
2. Check log files for hackers attempting to access your site.
3. Check all admin/merchant accounts( delete old employees and unused accounts) and validate all passwords are being changed on a regular bases.

Social and Community site for Surrey Mummy's.

For the past 6 months I have been helping my wife launch a social and community site for mothers (and fathers) in Surrey. SurreyMummy aims to offer parents the ability to see what is going and what activities they can do with their children in and around Surrey.
Parents can also chat about their experiences and problems as well as rate and review activities in Surrey.

This site is currently is the Pre-Launch phase and will be officially launched shortly.

It is great to use my community knowledge, learnt from retail eCommerce, and apply this to a non-retail site.

Optaros - eCommerce Innovation partners for Retailers

It has been a while since I last posted to this Retail eCommerce blog and this is due to being busy with my new job at Optaros.
This is an exciting role working for a company who are constantly innovating in the Retail eCommerce space.
Optaros main eCommerce offering is OCentric, which is an Open-SaaS Commerce, Content and Community platform.