Wow!! Capped numbers for Online Shopping

This is the first time that I've ever seen an online store actually cap the number of people viewing their site online. The Debenhams' website stops you at a holding page where they basically show the above message telling you that there are way too many people online at the moment.

I've seen it before for bandwidth hungry sites (e.g. Video, Images, etc) but never for a site trying to sell you stuff. Due to the nature of the people trying to access the site (people trying to grab a bargain), I guess that in this circumstance it is a valid application of imposing a cap on the number of people able to access the site.

I wonder what actually happens to people already in? Do they get a fixed amount of time before they are told to bugger off and shown the holding page? Are they sent direct to the basket or shopping cart and told to complete their purchases and do no more? Otherwise there could be a lot of annoyed customers who just before purchasing something are whisked away and not allowed to complete their purchase.