Having worked on the logistics side at Amazon and having some inside into classic mail order, I think mail order tranasferred much harder to eCommerce than most people think. It starts with order entry (mail vs. automatic digital solutions linked to fulfillment), covers prices and catalog updates (real time vs. once every couple.of months, again integrated into fulfillment) and everything im between.
> It starts with order entry (mail vs. automatic digital solutions linked to fulfillment), covers prices and catalog updates (real time vs. once every couple.of months, again integrated into fulfillment) and everything im between.
This is all easy and achievable, should you pursue the path. Incremental improvements onto an existing, ancient, paper-oriented business process are easily possible.
- Print off online orders as facsimile mail-in orders for processing
- Prices weren't fancy real-time updates back then, or didn't have to be if they were
You're looking at the state of today and assuming this is as it was on the nascent web.
