Reply To: The Best Service Website Is BACK!!! [The Deals are Back!!!]

[Peter DeLegge]

On zoukiman said

Should we still believe in a resurrection? 😬🤔

An e-commerce site being down for a full two weeks, that’s usually enough to say that it’s bit the dust. Something isn’t right that they’re down so long if they were using solid backup practices.

When I looked up info on Best Service, according to LinkedIn, they have less than 12 employees. Beyond their website, they are a sample library distributor that sells libraries through numerous retailers. I have no idea what percentage of the company’s revenue the e-commerce business makes up, but I would guess that it’s likely the majority of the company’s revenue (a blind guess, so I could easily be dead wrong).  But it’s really hard to believe that a company that derives a significant portion of its revenue from its ecommerce business could have mismanaged its data so badly that they’ve taken two weeks to get back up or they just aren’t using well qualified professionals to handle their site. Over the course of my career, I’ve advised more than 200 companies, including having responsibility for several corporate and e-commerce sites; three of them, well known global brands, and I was never was aware of any of them having gone offline for a couple of days, let alone two weeks.

So, being really candid, it does speak to very poor processes. It doesn’t inspire confidence, and I think Best Service’s lack of communication with the public has made things far worse. Then, when they have communicated, they’ve been vague and even made some concerning statements about data security that would lead one to believe they were hacked. I don’t mean to be harsh on a small business, but when you get involved in an e-commerce business, a huge, non-negotiable part of the job is protecting people’s data and following best practices in your data and security processes. If you can’t get your site back online within a day, it’s a huge red flag that you were not following responsible data practices.

I realize that we have IT pros here that have actual technical skills far, far, far beyond me. But I’ve been responsible for managing this area at corporations going back to the 90s. Two weeks is outrageous. Yes, two people from the company told me that they projected they’d be back online this week, but here we are, and they’re not giving us anything new. While I will continue using them when / if they get back online, I would NEVER give them a credit card. NEVER. I would STRONGLY urge everyone to do the same when it comes to every small retailer in this space. Consider that there are retailers in this space whose owners / CEOs hide their names from their websites and then expect people to turn over their credit card numbers and personal data. Yes, I don’t have confidence that these companies have their acts together when it comes to data security. Their websites often look like amateur hour, one man shows. So, again, I’d strongly recommend that everyone limits the personal information they provide and also that they DO NOT store their credit card information at these shops.

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