About the only detail I’ve read about what goes on behind the scenes at an e-commerce site is a rant from a founding member of Amazon who helped write the original customer service system. He said he got cornered at a reunion by all of the secretaries who used to use it way back in the late 1990s – and still missed it.

Behind the scenes of a shopping website is a complex interlocking mesh of supplier relationships, technology and, of course, customer service. For Antonia Ilieva, founder and current manager of local online shopping site Nivo, it’s a job that still sees her up at 06h00 and only to bed at around midnight, seven days a week. Ilieva started Nivo in mid-2007 after a bad experience with a local e-commerce site and hasn’t looked back.