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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (88297)	3/31/2001 6:13:30 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Let's take a website that does actually make money, or at least save it. Take Fedex's website for an example. In the old days I would call up Fedex and order multi-part labels which they would deliver to me a few days later. When I wanted to send something I would fill in the label put my Fedex in an envelope and then call a customer rep to get a pickup, I'd have to spend a few minutes giving the person all my information. The driver would come and pickup after the customer rep sent a code to his truck to pick up at my location. If the next day my client called me to say, "Where is it?" I'd put them on hold and call up the Fedex rep with the tracking number and she'd look through her computer to tell me where the package was. Now I use their software off their site. I click on the icon to get straight into the shipping screen, I create the label from either an address I have that is new or from my address book of previous shipments, I print the label on my laser printer. Before I print the label, the software double checks that I have filled in all the fields correctly and that the delivery options and fedex numbers are correct and available. It does this in seconds. After I print the label, I hit a button that calls the driver to pick up my package, I can send him specific instructions like "see front desk". Sometimes he shows up within five minutes because he has software that optimizes his route so that if a pickup is ordered when he is right down the street he is told to go to my location, regardless of the order of calls. I also check the box that has an email automatically sent directly to me and to my client announcing that the shipment is delivered. If it doesn't turn up in my mail box the next day I go directly back to the site and track that shipment with a mouse click. So now with this simple server (not so simple) we've eliminated two or three customer contacts with a service rep and the need for pre-printed labels. It would be interesting to compare how many customer reps that software is capable of replacing. It can do something no human rep can do, handle numerous simutaneous transactions. People are expensive. Any time you can replace them with software and hardware you are going to save money in your business. The difference between an airline ticket bought on a website as opposed to on the phone is $.08 to $8. How about cash and go gas pumps? It's a computer and a modem, I know it doesn't look like what you think of a computer and a modem but that is exactly what it is. I could go on and on. You guys want to find evidence that it's all a sham, you don't see all the efficiencies around you because they have become almost invisible. Walmart put a zillion Mom & Pops out of biz with their POS software (it wasn't the Walmart cheer, trust me), Home Depot did as well (our local Hechingers was a casualty, how's that for measured in dollars?). It gets more interesting now because everyone can afford that level of software, so where is the next level of efficiency going to come from?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (88297)	3/31/2001 6:57:58 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

>>how much economic productivity should be recorded for a website like yahoo!?<< It's impossible to measure. How can you measure - - Getting news a day before it's in the newspaper and hours before it's on television. Does it matter? Ask the people who get the latest "warning" before it even hits CNBC. - Comparison shopping to decide which product to buy. -- Getting the cheapest price when you decide what you want to buy. - Researching your symptoms to see what disease you have. - Researching the best medicine for it. - Finding a support group of others with the same disease and discussing treatment options, so you know what works, what doesn't, and what are the side effects. - Finding a group of people who have the car you do so you can discuss how to take care of it. - Finding a group of people who have the same computer you do so you can find out how to fix it. - Finding a map to your destination. - Finding a hotel for when you get there, and making sure it's on the beach instead of a block away, or across the street from the convention center instead of miles away. - Finding restaurant reviews so you don't eat at a place that serves bad food. I could go on and on, but why bother? Either you get what I am talking about or you don't.