Its quite simple; we don't do it.  Yes, we know we're crazy, we know all the books say your customers will be thrilled to hear from you at least once a month with some special offer that is matched to their order history.  We say, "bollocks".

Unsurprisingly we buy online quite a lot; have done since the dark ages of e-commerce pre-2000 when we tortured ourselves with a slow (& expensive!) 2 x 64Kb channel ISDN connection.

Anyway, the point of this story is that we have a favourite online shop (mankind if you must know) that we thought were perfect in every way.  That is until one day they thought they could 'improve' by sending 'targeted' emails.  It sent me into a blind rage, I'd have to confess.  The one place I respected for not pestering me via that most insidious form of modern communication (yes, we all know its free) had succumb to emailing me.  That's why despite what Seth Godin and all the other cone heads tell us we will never subject you to a group email telling you how wonderful we are and what great ideas we've got for your pet hamster's upcoming birthday.  Never!

We have every confidence that you are more than capable of remembering the name Londinium, and that even if you don't order from us for months, even years, that you haven't forgotten who we are.  You might not wish to purchase from us because you didnt enjoy our coffee, or you've gone scuba diving in tahiti to escape the winter, or any other of a million reasons; we're just quite confident that you don't need to be reminded that we exist.  There's more than enough regulation, hectoring, do this, do that, in our modern world without us adding to the chaos.

Go forth & enjoy your espresso with an empty mail box!