The E-Store phones will be off the hook on Christmas day, New Year's Day, and "the weekends that accompany those days," Spilley told ZDNet. He said the etailer's decision to shut down on those days was based on last year's experience, when E-Store received no calls from customers on Christmas day.
Christmas Eve was also quiet, with only 30 order-tracking requests received by the hi-tech goods merchant the entire day. Besides, he said, "nothing can be achieved on those days anyway".
"It's generally not a busy time. People realise there's really very little you can do."
"We are concentrating on avoiding those problems in the first place." Spilley was quick to distance his company from the flurry of delivery disaster stories that emerged from Australia's first etail Christmas last year.
He believes the delivery problems last year arose from too many etailers "trying to become a fulfilment company overnight."
The trick, he said, was to leave the delivery up to the supplier. All E-Store purchases are delivered either by the supplier directly, or by courier.
E-Store doesn't deal with the local etailing industry's delivery darling, Australia Post, due to differences in delivery procedural policy.
Spilley said he had expected business at E-Store - which primarily services the business community - would quieten down this December. Surprisingly, this month was gearing up to double the sales revenues of the previous record-holding month, he said.
Business is also looking healthy at wishlist.com.au, according to officials, but the Melbourne gifts etailer is not so confident that it will leave its customers to fend for themselves on the big days.
Sales and marketing director Simon Terry said the wishlist phones would be manned throughout Christmas day and Boxing day, even if very little could actually be done on those days to exchange or refund goods. If the wrong gift was delivered, a wishlist customer would still be able to refund or exchange the gift at a BP outlet. BP owns 25 percent of wishlist.
Terry said wishlist expected a smooth-sailing season of gift deliveries this year because the etailer had pulled back its deadline for last minute gift orders to almost a week before Christmas day.
This conservative approach would make for a less dynamic, but also less disastrous, Christmas season this year, according to www.consult principal analyst Ramin Mazbani.
Mazbani said too many etailers last year lured consumers onto the Web with promises of "24-hours notice, last minute" delivery. As a result, too many gifts were delivered late, or not at all.
The other lesson etailers had learnt this year was not to catalogue items that weren't immediately available, Mazbani said.
"If you don't have supply, don't advertise," he said. "This year, everyone decided not to be as aggressive."
Mazbani said www.consult research found that 1.1 million Australians - more than five percent of the population - had shopped for Christmas gifts over the Web in 2000. The average Australian online shopper spent AU$300 and spent 30 percent of their Christmas gift-buying budget online, Mazbani said.
