As you may have noticed Moss now lets you order online from their web
site. That's the good news.
....
C'mon on folks...... I know there's a techie on this list with the
skills to set them up on a secure server with a shopping cart, back
order status, order confirmation number etc.. Actually I just can't
figure out why they stopped short of "doing it right".
<H1>No Triumph Content</H1>
I suspect non-Internet companies experience a fair amount of sticker shock
when diving into the Internet, especially the e-commerce thing. I costs a
lot of money to do right. I used to work at GE's R&D Center and was one of
the first people there dabbling in the Internet. Shortly after I left to do
my Internet thing, GE Plastics put up the first GE corporate web site (one
devoted to marketing GE products as opposed to the R&D Center's more
tech-oriented site). I believe they paid under $100,000 for that first
site. This was from a company with something like $60B in sales at the
time. GE Plastics' sales were probably in the $5-10B range at the time and
their marketing budget was probably as big as the R&D Center's entire
budget. Why so skimpy? They had to prove to themselves it would work.
That first site was pretty miserable. It was full of microscopic scans of
polymer data sheets, but it provided information their (prospective)
customers could use.
The next jump GE took was a quantum leap. They probably spent several
million on their next site and drop a huge chunk of change to maintain it on
a yearly basis. I think they're in at least their second major revision of
that site. (I don't visit on a regular basis, but it looks different and
loads Java on the front page, so they've probably done more than just tweak
it.) That was with no e-commerce. There is still only a very small
e-commerce component (mostly ordering appliance parts as far as I can tell).
If you look at sites like Amazon.com or other pure-play Internet companies,
it can spoil you. Those sites cost a bundle to build and maintain. They
got a sh*tload of money from some crazed venture capitalists. All they do
is that one thing, so naturally they're going to bet the farm on it. Now,
as a publically traded company they have even more cash to work with,
especially with the recently stratospheric stock prices.
Compare that to a fairly small company like Moss or TRF. They have a
successful business, but they are privately held. They can't just issue
another chunk of stock for the slobbering fools breaking down the doors to
buy stock in an Internet company. Their Internet stuff is going to be
entirely self-funded and they defintely aren't going to risk the rest of the
business on something that's unproven to them. They've probably had sales
droids in their ear for a couple years telling them how great everything
will be. They are probably a bit skeptical. Consider this site as their
first foray into selling stuff on the net. If it works, they'll probably
step to to the counter for seconds.
That said, adding a secure server would have probably only added less than
five grand to the cost of their e-commerce venture. They run Apache, so
they could have just dropped in Stronghold in its place. But I digress...
<H1>Obligatory Triumph Content</H1>
Not much happened on the TR-250 yesterday, *but* I did round up some teenage
labor who helped me drop the body on the chassis. It's now sitting in the
driveway patiently awaiting my return... I can't tell you how happy Ellen is
to get the garage back for tomorrow's garage/moving sale. :-)
Skip Montanaro | Mojam: "Uniting the World of Music" http://www.mojam.com/
skip@mojam.com | Musi-Cal: http://www.musi-cal.com/
518-372-5583
|