3.20.2008
Amazon launches new supply chain service
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angus young
TechCrunch says that Amazon is launching a new "virtual logistics" service.
E-Commerce, like rock and roll, never dies, it just gets bigger and better all the time. If you have extra capacity to utilize this is a great idea. I actually wrote a plan for something quite similar called eLogistics, eventually UPS WWL experimented with the service..using an outsourced warehouse, EDI, Internet-visible replenishment and the whole deal. If I recall there were 2 initial customers...
1. Intel - They wanted to pick, pack, and ship web orders of action figures based on the dancing, multi-colored Intel clean room guys (which dominated their ads in the late 90s). At one point they wanted to create an entertainment franchise around these guys like perhaps, blue man group. No luck.
2. Quokka Sports - Aussie multimedia "reality TV" company that broadcast the Whitbread Cup live (which is a major South Seas nautical extravaganza) they wanted us to process orders for totchkes such as little sailboats, T-shirts, and mousepads. Their CEO was constantly on the phone with the guy in the next office to mine...they were also looking for some kind of co-branding deal, you know put the UPS logo on their S-1 filing. Eventually it was snapped up by NBC.
Remember Electron Economy? That was a co. founded by Joe Firmage after U.S. Web. Similar plan, but it flamed out.
But really, supply chain is far more boring than social software. You have to know stuff like which states allow triple-trailers, why all trailers have Oklahoma license plates (Oklahoma is O.K.). Triple-trailers save a lot of money. In the Aussie outback they have quad trailers, since there are no people.
Labels: acdc, electroneconomy, intelguys, upswwl
