Lush scrubs its card-processing servers squeaky clean Lush, high street peddler of lotions and potions for the pampered, lost the ability to perform card transactions yesterday due to a bath bomb dropped in the server room. Or something like that. Stores such as the one at London's Victoria station apologised to punters desperate for a smell of the good life but lacking the …
UK retailer specialising in handmade cosmetics ranging from soaps, shampoos, body creams
..and providing me with the inability to breathe unless I hold my breath when walking past the always-open Lush door..
Feeling your airways slam shut at the stench of mixed smells coming from Lush isn't fun.
932 outlets, turnover of £995m, profits before tax £73.5m
And they either a) employ an IT team who deploy systems where a stray single delete results in complete loss of central functionality (i.e. no backup, redundancy, failover, etc.), or b) can't get a credit card reader working by putting a 4G-backup router in each store (I'd say for 932 outlets, you could do it for about £200k max, with maybe £50-90k a year ongoing cost?)
Seriously... I mean... things happen but is there really an excuse for that?
Hell, I could argue a business case for the stores just "authorising" the card transaction anyway, but storing it for later batching when connectivity was restored. Nobody is going to notice that the transaction came out a few days later (shops do that to me all the time) and the cost of fraud over a normal day would be negligible compared to the loss of business without cards at all.
Especially if you wouldn't have to go announcing over Twitter that things aren't working, but stores just carry on working silently and unknowingly the same as they always had.
Well, the store doesn't perform the authorisation, the bank does. And there are pretty strict legal requirements for the anti-fraud systems. Not sure they could actually do what you're suggesting (the bank would probably squarely refuse).
It is also entirely possible that the bank's auth system was at fault there. A, erm, friend of mine told me it kinda happened recently at the bank they are working with (not in the UK).
Having my TITSUP*, I did my homework... and read all listed above. And I wonder why you wonder why you are still living with your mum, in the basement no less. ... 'Beware of the man who doesn't care about money' is one coined frase, since 'Beware of the man who doesn't care about soap' goes without saying...
Guys... you wonder why there are so few women around here? Or there usually is a screen between you and their delight? Tut tut tut...
~ ~ ~
*Total Inability To Stand Unwashed P... No, that would be unkind... you poor devils, living with your mum and all... You do know it's a myth one could die from taking a bath. (I checked on snopes.com) Right?
I use soap. Unscented soap. Why would I shower with something that is likely to offend more people than good honest sweat? I never really understood that. What are the folks who use such products trying to hide AFTER they get clean? Does a clean human body actually smell bad to them, so they have a need to mask their own scent from themselves? Or have they just succumbed to marketing?
I take it, Glen 1, that you are one of the small sub-set of humanity who seems to think that afflicting your choice of scent on the rest of us is OK? Well, it's NOT. It's an invasion of personal space. If I wanted to smell a French whorehouse, I'd go to a French whorehouse. I don't want to smell one sitting next to me on the Tube ... or worse, an airplane.
As for "nice easy gifts", you mean wasting your money on a convenience item in order to do your marketing invented duty by giving unwanted toiletries to friends and family who have absolutely no need or want of the product? Better to save your money. Or, if you insist on spending it, either give the cash to the intended victim, or donate it to charity in their name. Much better than wasting it on something that will only end up in a landfill, don't you think?
>that you are one of the small sub-set of humanity who seems to think that afflicting your choice of scent on the rest of us is OK?
If you're close enough to tell, you're too close.
I honestly don't think that people who use antiperspirants or deodorants are a small sub-set. At least in the west - maybe it's different where you live. The bath bombs smell strong *while they are being used*. I would struggle to tell if someone had used one that morning.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the "dousers", but that requires repeated and generous applications. Otherwise the smell just doesn't last that long.
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