The Problem
Why make a shopping trip once a month to buy toilet paper? (Or once a week if you live in New York and can only buy as much as you can carry on the subway.) Why should you have to remember to replace your toothbrush, or to buy more vitamins, or a fresh box of tampons, or those energy bars you eat every morning and buy in enormous quantities? Why, if you have a small business, do you pay one of your employees run to the store every week to buy more instant coffee? What about diapers? Babies poop a lot, and carrying huge packages of Pampers home from Costco every week is a major chore.
Constantly procuring all these everyday items, these necessities of living, uses up a lot of what might otherwise be free (or more productive) hours.
The Solution
What if you didn’t have to shop for these anymore? What if they just showed up on your doorstep every 1, 2, 3, or 6 months? What if shipping was free? What if everything was automated, yet you had the flexibility to change shipment frequencies with a click? What if there were a way to get toothbrushes every three months, vitamins and cereal and shampoo every month, and laundry detergent twice a year? What if it were possible to have coffee delivered to your office, tampons delivered to your apartment, and soap delivered to your ex-boyfriend’s place? What if there were no commitment, no minimum order, no fees whatsoever?
And then you save an additional 15% off your order. Off all your orders. Forever.
So About That Flying Car...
This awesome scenario is no George Jetson Pipe Dream, it’s a reality called Subscribe & Save, a new offering by - you probably guessed it - Amazon.
Sounds great to me.
The only slight problem I see is that most items are sold in bulk, which means having to clear out some space for storage. It’d also be great to have a weekly delivery option, but I understand the financial and logistical issues with this at the moment. However, a program like this is a wonderful step into the future, and will no doubt become even more flexible, and capable, as volume increases, and Amazon finds more cost- and time-efficient shipping methods.
What do you think? Useful?
What everyday items would you like to never have to worry about again?
28 November 2007
Never Buy Toilet Paper Again!
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2 comments:
For non-perishable items, this is fantastic, and I've seen it advertised for a quite a while now. I used to buy individual items from Amazon, before they made everything into "bulk" packages. One time I actually purchased a single toothbrush (just your average $1 toothbrush), and with Prime shipping, I received the shipment in two days, with the lone toothbrush packaged. I imagine people like me is why Amazon decided to make everything bulk.
My girlfriend doesn't like care for this service much since she likes actually being in the store, browsing shelves, etc. But I can see your point for repetitive purchases - why waste the gas and time?
Matt,
I think it was my fault too, then. I also bought a single toothbrush (though a fancy $2 version). I thought that it was the most ingenious thing ever, but then the next time I needed one, I was required to buy a bundle. And so I didn't.
Some people will always like shopping. And there's something to be said about finding bargains, etc. But convenience sometimes will trump that - and you get to spend the extra time shopping for cooler stuff like gadgets and DVDs.
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