Retailers spend sizeable budgets on customer recruitment activity, back in the day marketing's (and the external creative agencies) role was to design eye catching campaigns that could be rolled out via a variety of multi-media channels such as newspapers, magazines, billboards, and of course Cinema, Radio, and Television, all very glamorous.....

Then came the internet, along with the ability for marketing to move from a cost and service department to become the power driver of measurable, tangible, real time customer recruitment and revenues, a true business unit - suddenly there was an explosion of data for them to ponder, refined targeting was now front of mind, and a whole set of companies grew up to service this demand which in turn created today's business growth dilemma as marketing seems to have morphed into the corporate bullhorn department.

For those that can recall, one of the first major data collection storage, and intelligence companies in the UK wasn't 'Cambridge Analytica' it was in fact the company that helped supermarket chain 'Tesco' to understand how to drive more footfall, and increase basket size.

This was all from a groundbreaking innovative company called 'Dunhumby', who by rights should have gone on to become THE de-facto organisation to drive eCommerce intelligence around the world, but that's a story for another day.

Let's be honest with ourselves, retail adopted the homogenisation and the blandness of 'corporate multiple retailing' long before the internet kicked it in the balls, add to this the constant pressure on rising cost, the not very environmentally friendly splurge of fast fashion and a simple lack of 'retail theatre has led to this opportunity to reinvent what was.

The unabated rise of online shopping now via Apps and mobile, along with shopping via social media, and Gen Z (with their parents) using tech platforms rather than the 'Mall' to go and do their shopping, it's obviously a difficult time for retailers, regardless if you're online or offline.

If you operate in the physical world of retailing and the lights literally go out (electrical failure) chances are you can be back up and running in a matter of hours or minutes.

But when you operate only in the digital world are you immune from the risk that can close your business and damage your reputation in an instant?

It seems not;

The UK's biggest fishing shop has been hacked, with its website redirecting keen anglers to an adult website.

Angling Direct, which sells fishing gear online and through stores, said it was hit by the attack late on Friday November 5th. On top of the website redirect, its Twitter account has been compromised to also reference a porn site and to post contact details for the attacker.

The company said it has brought in cyber-security experts to tackle the problem, and alerted authorities. On Angling Direct's own Twitter account, the attacker posted a mocking tweet claiming the company had been sold to adult website Pornhub.

"Your data has already been transferred" to the adult video empire, it told fishing enthusiasts, apparently trolling them.

As more business is being done 'online' and especially in the run up to the biggest sales period for retail - when was the last end to end risk assessment done by an external company?

What is your point of failure(s) and how do you recover if the above happens to your company?