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The UK company has brought in search experts Endeca, which powers the search of Walmart and Circuit City sites in the US among others, to offer browsers an easier route to find the most suitable products.

Marketing Director Jonathan Wall said that the dabs.com customer had changed greatly from the early adopter of technology, who would be able to get straight to the product as they most likely already knew the product code or exact name.

dabs.com's reputation for agressive pricing has meant its customer base comprises a much wider demographic, and its product range has matched this growth rate. The company stocks around 15,000 products and its registered users total 1.4m. Now a dabs.com customer is likely to be less tech-savvy and more intimidated by the range on offer.

Endeca's new search allows users to home in on suitable products using a variety of attributes such as price, brand and even CCD size and weight. This method of narrowing down the search should result in the customer being left to choose from a list of 10 or 20 products rather than hundreds.

And ensuring the customer makes the right decision is vital to prevent the product

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being returned - both costly for dabs.com and frustrating for the customer. But once the customer clicks 'buy', there's no chance to stop that product from shipping. 'Within half an hour it's on the back of a wagon,' says Wall.

Efficient, yes, but to build in greater flexibility would make dabs.com less competitive and would effect its customers in other ways, he maintains. 'You wouldn't be able to order at 9 o'clock and still have the product the next day otherwise,' said Wall.

Being at the bleeding edge of efficiency is also what caused dabs.com to ditch its retail outlet strategy. Wall said its promise to offer online prices in its pilot stores at well-positioned airport spots cut margins too finely, he explained, despite the brand building boon that they provided.

That's not to say that dabs.com's expansion ambitions have been burnt by the experience. Wall said that as a privately held company it has to grow profitably rather than take on debts. The new site will serve both the UK and France. Wall said it has also looked at territories in Europe and Scandinavia with perhaps an eye on Sweden or Spain and number in the Lowlands, where broadband access is well-established. Wall said that countries such as Italy are more fixed on face-to-face business and don't take so strongly to online commerce.

Wall also hinted at expanding the range beyond strictly tech products. Co-founder David Atherton said he considered anything with a plug at the end of a wire as electronics, but to date dabs.com has focused quite strictly on the computer side of that. Now Wall said the possibility of adding new categories, if not new ranges, is being mooted. This would be along the lines of what computer users need while they're working, he said.