The digital photography revolution is well under way, as we all know. There is a myriad of solutions for taking pictures and for storing, organizing, retrieving, posting, sharing, and printing them. For grandmothers and great grandmothers the 4" x 6" glossy print is still the preferred medium for sharing and discussing pictures. I decided to make the leap and buy a Canon i960 Photo Printer. The IBM Infoprint Color 1354 is the workhouse for my printing needs, including brilliant color for web documents and presentations, but the i960 is nice for easily printing high quality 4" x 6" prints.
The Canon i960 Photo Printer has 3,720 precisely machined nozzles eject microscopic-sized droplets on glossy paper producing a stunning edge-to-edge 4" x 6" borderless print with the look and feel of a traditional photograph in roughly 35 seconds. The resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi results in over 5.7 million droplets per square inch. The i960 replaced the Epson Stylus 2000P Photo printer. It prints very nicely also but is more oriented toward large color prints which I have not had many occasions to need. Like millions of others, when I have something I no longer need, I turn to eBay.
After the 7-day auction on eBay was completed, I received an email saying who the successful bidder was and that he lived in North Haven, Connecticut. Since this is less than an your from where I live, I sent an email to the buyer and offered him the option of picking up the printer if he wanted to save the shipping cost. We then made arrangements to meet near where I live. I packed up the Epson printer and fastened it on the back of the Ultra Classic Electra Glide and took a short ride to meet the buyer. The man from North Haven picking up his printer is an example of online e-commerce combined with local fulfillment. It is a much bigger idea than what was represented by this transaction.
For years, I have been expecting to see some of the larger retailers of the world offer online purchases supplemented with optional local fulfillment. The concept is not complicated. The implementation will require some non-trivial effort.
Imagine a Saturday afternoon working on a leaky pipe, a lawn mower in need of repair, or your favorite hobby in the basement. Invariably you discover that you are in need of a tool or part that you do not have. You could order it online and wait until Tuesday (at best) to get what you need. Since you need it now, you get on your motorcycle or in the car and head to the store — hoping that they will have what you need in stock. For some reason, it seems that the odds of an out-of-stock situation are always highest when your need is greatest.
The idea of online ordering with local fulfillment can solve the problem. First you would go online and find the desired part at the web site of TrueValue hardware, Home Depot, or Radio Shack and make the purchase. In addition to the normal shipping options, the local fulfillment option would enable you to enter your zip code, and the web site would then show a map and directions to the nearest store which has the item you purchased in stock. You would then then print out a receipt for your purchase and hop on the bike or get in the car and head to the store. Finally, you would go to the “pick up” window, present your receipt, and leave with the desired item.
The local fulfillment idea is definitely achievable, and it could be quite useful during the week in addition to the weekends. With more WiFi-enabled handheld devices, it could prove useful to contractors working at job sites in addition to consumers. Local fulfillment requires real-time inventory at the store level — an up to the minute database of exactly what is on hand in each store. Once an online order is confirmed, the item must be physically removed from the store shelf to insure that when the customer arrives, he or she will indeed be able to pick up the item. As retailers move to RFID (radio frequency identification) tags on merchandise, real-time inventory management will be more accurate.
Local fulfillment is yet another dimension of the on demand e-business — enabling all constituencies to have appropriate access to the applications and data they need, whenever they need it, wherever they are, and using whatever kind of device they are using to connect to the Internet.
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