Ged Carroll

Month: January 2006

  • Boxman online retail

    Boxman


    My first transaction online was registering and paying for a piece of shareware software at Kagi.com for my Mac whilst I was still in college. I can’t remember what it did now, but I remember that the author was a student at a Scottish university. The first physical item was bought from Boxman a few years later.

    e-dancer

    The first thing I purchased online in what most people would understand as e-commerce was a Kevin ‘Reese Saunderson CD under the name e-dancer from Boxman.com. I can remember why I loved Boxman.I had read about them in an article in the Sunday Times, it was a way of getting CDs from all over Europe in one place, Boxman would buy at the lowest price, consolidate their stock in one warehouse in Holland and pass on much of the savings to the consumer.

    (CDWOW have a similar approach and have incurred the wraith of the record industry who like to have keep up market barriers to maximise profit margins.)I picked up an import copy of the Troubleman soundtrack by Marvin Gaye, when I couldn’t get a UK copy on back order from HMV. The mix of choice and price the e-commerce killer application for me.

    Unfortunately Boxman.com unraveled for a number of reasons. Usability experts put it down the search function on the site being the only way for finding what you were looking for (although I had no trouble). Tony Salter, one of the directors in the business laid the fault at the foot of the software which controlled the supply chain of the site. In order to fulfill on its promise, Boxman needed to:

    • Track wholesale prices and cost of delivery across Europe, including comparison pricing for the same product with different national catalogue numbers
    • Organise shipping in the most effective and efficient manner
    • Track customer orders and trends
    • Calculate the most effective and efficient ways to ship goods

    This was on top of the complex website functions visible to the consumer. The system would be much more complex than your typical JD Edwards ERP set-up, so Boxman got some of the brightest names in IT to help out: IBM. The project seems to have been a learning experience for IBM as the software failed to deliver on its promise. Anyway, Slate.com have a timely reminder on the importance of logistics management, before we all get lost in reverie around web services revolutionising the online world. More related content here. 

  • Chinese eyes on Korea

    From romantic Korean drams to hard boiled films like Old Boy and Silmido are making waves amongst arthouse cinema fans and movie industry talent-spotters throughout the western world. It now seems that its not only Hollywood that is turning its eyes eastwards to follow the latest cultural carrying-ons in Korea, but Chinese eyes are too.

    The New York Times China’s Youth Look to Seoul for Inspiration by Norimitsu Onishi (January 2, 2006) has an interesting article on how young Chinese eyes Korea as tastemakers in fashion, beauty and  popular culture.

    The country’s cultural exports are cutting-edge tempered with the Confucian-based culture familiar to Chinese audiences. American culture is too ‘post-modern’ to be absorbed directly. At least some of the time, China sees Japan in a way reminiscent of Basil Fawlty and  is still beyond the pale because of the War. Although the Chinese consistent appetite for Japanese AV content is well documented elsewhere. Taste making goes beyond pop singers and movies to hip brands such the must-have mobile phone from Samsung and Hyundai cars.

    Rather like Eric Clapton adapting the blues for white audiences in the UK; so Korea is adapting western idioms from hip-hop culture and sit-coms like Sex in the City. It is then making them palatable for East Asian audiences. Free trade and intellectual property protection is likely to not be as beneficial to Hollywood in tapping the Chinese market as the media moguls had hoped. More Korea related posts here.