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Non-Tech : Ingram Micro -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ausdauer who wrote (543)	2/20/2000 12:31:00 PM
From: David O'Berry	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 576

Ausdauer, I love the idea the kid has about the pickup points. The only problem I see is that staffing logistics in that situation might get very cludgy very quickly. Do they just rent him space for nothing or very little and hope the traffic he generates is the boon or do they actually staff the service for him? In that situation he establishes the backend logistics and they supply the front. I will see what I can find out about similar situations. I also think from a "makes perfect sense" standpoint that the Starbucks situation makes the most business sense for both. Walk-in traffic is key for that model and it is not hard to buy a quick cup of coffee. Hopefully he protected himself because SBUX is not above eating his lunch. I can see this grand consortium of Fedex (no union), Starbucks (or some other fairly dispersed organization), and Ingram working something like this out. It would be a heck of a lot easier than FedEx always making return trips. I wonder how much in labor it costs to do that over a one year term? We could create central repositories of shipped goods and then an extended premium service where the bonded and insured Dominos type delivery guy brings you your e-commerce goods. I am not in marketing. I am actually a 28 year old network geek (NOVL, CSCO, MSFT, Nortel) with a Honor's College BA in History from USC. I own the majority stake in a consulting group called The Network Group. The funny part is that me and all of my consultants work as ITS Directors or managers for other companies. We did a study which in effect told us that after hours work was preferred in many cases to normal business hours work based on the mitigation of disruption. I think the same thing applies with this delivery situation. If people own their own business then they can take shipments all day long. That lends itself to a fairly concise B2B model. You order, we get it together, we ship it to you, you receive it. What we are really talking about is the way to achieve critical mass to the end user. This is the guy or gal that may not be able to receive packages at work and would like to purchase a lot more product over the web. The problem is he/she hates the final interaction in the transaction. Ordering is no problem. Paying for it is easy. Shipping it can be ironed out. Receiving it on the other hand is a pain. I think the brass ring and the key to higher margins in this situation is the last leg. People will pay a percentage point or two more to have product handed to them on a silver platter. I guarantee that. David PS. I also appreciate the quality of the folks on this board and simply submit my ideas for review. You guys are a probably a lot more in tune with the back-end that I am. Below are a couple of stretches. Cut me some slack because it is early Sunday morning. AIM Concierge service provides the link between you and the internet to provide your purchases to you when you want them and not when someone tells you that you can have them. At Ingram Micro, we provide a line of services from the Fortune 100 down to the $100 dollar purchase you just completed at your favorite Internet company. At Ingram Micro, we are (already) the 2 in B2B. (I love that. I missed it the first time) Let us be your new link in the changing world of B2Y. (Business to You) (B2C seems impersonal) David