Further Proof That Not Everything's Better on the Web
By James J. Cramer
This was from last weeks Street.com
"Karen, I'm out of deodorant!" I yell when I hop out of the shower.
"OK, I'll go on the Web and order some. It should be here in three days!"
"Terrific! Could you pick up some toothpaste, too? Oh, and we don't have any soap, either."
"No problem, honey. Soap, toothpaste -- they've got it all. How soon do you want them?"
"Well, we're all out now. But it's no rush -- I'll wait a couple days. It's not like I'm in a rush to bathe or brush my teeth!"
Online drugstores -- what a godsend!
OK, I am being a little cynical. But not everything is better on the Web. I just finished listening to a highly touted guy speaking about a highly touted company with highly touted Web prospects backed by a highly touted venture-capital firm that I am sure will be highly touted, if not Marimba-like, in its publicity.
And I say, Whoa! I remember a decade ago when the rage of my little investment group was Drug Emporium (DEMP:Nasdaq). Drug Emporium's pitch was -- and is -- that no one likes to go to the drug store. Drug Emporium was supposed to be a category killer, the company that would wipe out all of the drug stores by offering great selection and value, not to mention large sizes.
So, sure enough, Karen, my wife, and I go to one of these behemoths. And she picks out a virtual barrel of shampoo and a vat of Johnson's baby oil and then she looks at me and says, "What the heck do we need these for? We are not stockpiling for thermonuclear war."
More important, she says, "This is the most boring store I have ever been in."
Sure enough, common sense dictated the concept would never take off, and it didn't.
Now I hear that the Web will replace the impulse buy and the emergency buy for drugstore products. I am a big believer in the Web as an efficiency mechanism. I can't wait until drugstores have Web sites that doctors can go right to and order your prescription and then you get an email telling you when it is filled so you don't have to kill time in that crummy paperback section! Barbara Hackford Files!
But ordering toothpaste by the mail? Gee, get me to Silicon Valley right now. I have a terrific idea: www.anthracite_for_your_home.com. Tired of going right to the coal mines of Scranton and digging anthracite coal for your house? Go online. Safer, cleaner. Ahh, but it might come too late. Eighty years too late! Hoo-hah. So what? It will be hot, hot, hot!
Could not of said it better myself! Thanks Cramer.
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