I predict that e-shopping will never replace or even equal l-shopping. [live shopping]. At least that is, until e-shopping can match the instant gratification of l-shopping. So I offer worried e-tailers this halfbaked bagel.

Let's go back before the 1920s to when all the retailers came to your door - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker etc. They fascinated me, as a small boy. As I saw it, the housewive's life then was not nearly as bad as it's been painted. She enjoyed instant-instant shopping. The mall came to her.

Could the e-tailers learn from those bygone days and in some situations shorten delivery time by maintaining stocked-up roving vans in constant communication with main storage?
-- rayfo, Nov 07 2000

Charles Kuralt goes High Tech http://www.halfbake...0goes_20High_20Tech
We've been looking for something for this wired bus to actually *do* as its progress across the country is displayed on its website. Maybe it should deliver milk and eggs. [jutta, Nov 07 2000]

pubwan semi trailer http://www.brightid...10AD3FB}&bucket_id=
information about goods in these trailers would be public knowledge [LoriZ, Nov 07 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Schwan's http://www.schwans.com/
The frozen food distributor company submitinkmonkey mentions. [jutta, Mar 05 2007]

The service rayfo describes could be built up from the other side, not by having e-tailers pre-stock their vans, but by providing existing vans in low-population areas with a web presence. You could check where the ice-cream van is now, when it's expected to be here, and schedule a stop unless they've run out of vanilla heath-bar crunch *again*.

This removes the need for instant delivery on a whim, replacing it with predictable, forseeable availability - the cheaper public transportation alternative, so to speak. A shop that's open for a short while is much better than no shop at all, as long as you can predict when and where that short while is.
-- jutta, Nov 07 2000


//Remember the milkman?//

Yes Peter, but is the milk pasteurized?
-- mighty_cheese, Sep 24 2001


jutta: Would that obviate the need for the ice-cream van to play bits of Brahms' lullaby at high volume (and highly distorted) day after day? I certainly hope so.

(UK ICVs play such music as they do their rounds - and it is excruciating on summer days.)
-- snagger, Sep 24 2001


Well, we could resurrect Kozmo.
-- wiml, Sep 25 2001


Selection is a bit of an issue.
-- egnor, Sep 25 2001


In the US there's a company called Schwann's that drives around neighborhoods with refrigerated trucks and knocks on your door to see if you want any groceries today - so already partially-baked. Now if they'd just bring me kitty litter and toilet paper...
-- submitinkmonkey, Mar 09 2005


//Yes Peter, but is the milk pasteurized?//

Some people forget how much we really lose in the quality of food by using preservative methods. I want fresh baked bread delivered to my doorstep, each morning, still warm from the oven. I want cows milk straight from the cow. No endocrine-disrupting preservatives. No flavor-removing processes.
-- spiraliii, Mar 05 2007



random, halfbakery