It's a revenue opportunity that few CFOs can afford to miss out on � even those in booming sectors such as cycling. "We recognise that our online business is growing very, very quickly and that's a challenge that we're trying to meet," Halls says.

As a result, Hall gave his blessing to a further �200,000 investment on refreshing the Evans website in 2010, which is just part of a wider �1 million investment in the organisation's IT systems.

Indeed, the success of Evans's online business is influencing Hall's overall capital expenditure programme. With Capex running at between 3.5 percent and 4 percent of revenues, Hall sees this as the right level of investment going forward, despite it peaking in 2010/11 at between 4 percent and 5 percent when between eight and nine stores were opened, rather than the more usual four.

"I think that's probably going to be the level we go forward with; partly driven by the web, because while we're getting strong sales there [at the stores] we don't need total national coverage," he says. "We may only need 75 from our current base of 45 � It has been the online side that's made us think like that."

The retail sector is a complex beast. While the big four or five supermarkets continue to rumble on like some sort of modern day army, occupying high streets the length and breadth of the country, other areas are on their knees. Meanwhile, there are some isolated pockets which continue to boom.