Friday, March 02, 2007

Walmart Nouvelle

Walmart could become a good net-order store. They have the capital to augment their chain[s] with a good warehouse/home delivery service. Sears did it 115 years ago. Any chain could quickly take advantage of the world's internet population and use webcams store chats and net salespeople to sell goods.

I imagine the store as a webhangout as well as a business. Active chat rooms, a forum, news tickers, maybe a DJIA category board for certain genres, you can have your ads, plenty of store and product review blogs, [oh, that did it], map and directions protocols, store locators, warehouse locators, search engine, product finder, charity lists and clickable charities, and maybe some flash games too. Webcomic rings. Modest hosting. It'll be bright.

Next up will be the product order info. People will come here for the funk above, and also find the time to order products amazon style to be delivered same day or at their convenience. Grocery-style. No one waits 2 days for groceries. They get it in hours. So they will get a blender they see on a webcam in hours, in the comfort of their home. You can order a pizza online, why not a blender?

Walmart is making far less money on its old stores. Perhaps they should begin *closing* unprofitable stores, or turn them into internet cafes and direct warehouses.

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