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To: David O'Berry who wrote (550)	2/20/2000 12:55:00 PM
From: E_K_S	Respond to of 576

To David, Ausdauser and thread: Here is a related item that I posted earlier this month about how Sony is using the 7-11 convenience stores to deliver their new PlayStation. (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-1541472.html?tag=st.cn.1.lthdne) Sony pushes PlayStation in e-commerce deal By Reuters Special to CNET News.com February 3, 2000, 11:15 a.m. PT TOKYO--Electronics giant Sony took another stride into the nation's promising e-commerce market today, saying it would use the nation's biggest network of convenience stores to sell its PlayStation games on the Internet. Analysts said the move, which will enable fans to order a game online and collect it at their local corner store, looked set to open a new front in the already fiercely competitive video-game business. Sony's wholly-owned unit, Sony Computer Entertainment, unveiled business partnerships with 11 blue-chip companies, led by Seven-Eleven Japan which owns a sprawling network of 8,000 convenience stores nationwide. The eleven firms include Culture Convenience Club,the operator of 970 "Tsutaya' video and music CD shops, as well as DigiCube, a leading wholesaler of video game software via convenience store chains. The firms allied with Sony's newly-established e-commerce arm PlayStation.com from Japan, which was set up on Tuesday to sell PlayStation games and hardware through the Internet ahead of the long-awaited launch of the next-generation PlayStation2 in March. It will also sell music compact discs (CDs) and DVD video discs in the future. The Sony move may hit some distributors. "The move could stimulate the whole software market by lowering distribution costs and bringing benefits to both software makers and users,' said Eiji Maeda, a Daiwa Institute of Research analyst. "Conventional game distributors would be hit hardest.' He said e-commerce using existing retailing networks like convenience stores are seen as a stop gap until consumers are able to simply download games from the Internet. Japan's more than 50,000 convenience stores, many of which are open 24 hours a day, already offer consumers a wide range of services and are seen as having an ideal infrastructure for the growing e-commerce business. Seven-Eleven unveiled a venture with blue-chip firms including Sony earlier this year for online sales in such diverse areas as travel, music, photography and books. Maeda predicted that in a year or two, some 30 percent of domestic game software sales--which totaled some $3.3 billion in 1998--could be made online, including those through in-store multimedia terminals. Under the latest alliance pact, the eleven firms, which include several top Japanese game software makers like Namco, Square, Enix, and Capcom, would take a combined 20 percent stake in PlayStation.com by the end of March. Sony's Internet-capable PlayStation2 machine is expected to open a new era in the gaming world when it goes on sale on March 4. Rival Nintendo plans to launch its own next-generation console later in the year. ============================================================

To: David O'Berry who wrote (550)	2/20/2000 1:19:00 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 576

David, You stated... 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. My biggest complaint about UPS or FedEx or USPS is that the delivery is delayed if you aren't home during the day to receive it. That is very frustrating if you're really pumped up about a new purchase in the mail. In my area you could leave a package on the doorstep and not worry about it getting ripped off. (Yes, there still are places like this in the USA!) My biggest fear would be that the contents would freeze or get rained on or chewed up by a squirrel. This is the dilemma. Good consumers usually have good jobs. They are not home during the day time to retrieve packages and don't want to make special arrangements for pick-up. Places that I feel would be great "repositories" for delivery would be chain stores like SuperAmerica that you see on every street corner. Direct delivery to places of employment would also be great. Imagine a pick-up window in the company cafeteria at 3M or Honeywell. There are even places like MailBoxes, etc... that are designed to handle this kind of business. Either way it has to be cheaper than a package-by-package delivery by a guy in a brown suit in a brown, refurbished milk truck. Last May I was in Sunnyvale for the Shareholders' Annual Meeting for SanDisk. We took a few days off to go and see some sites around the Bay Area. My sister recommended a National Park just south of San Francisco and we headed out in our rental car. The road was steep, winding and narrow. At one point it was down to a single lane. If another car were to come by I could have imagined gravel and other rubble caving away on the outside of the curve. (My biggest fear was being found 3 weeks later by park rangers totally desicated in a Chevy Lumina crushed flat as a pancake and wrapped around some prehistoric conifer.) Well, we were about 20 minutes from our destination in the middle of a redwood forest when out of nowhere a UPS truck approached us from the opposite direction. I suspect it had some delivery for the gift shop at the Ranger's Station because there was nothing else in this remote area that would have required a delivery. My wife and I both broke out laughing. The bottom line, there has to be a better solution! Ausdauer