I love the internet for many reasons. Obviously I like the entertainment value via streaming. I, like a larger and larger segment of the population, am out of the cable TV and satellite TV business and just care about broadband internet access via WiFi. When we travel anywhere I have no idea why they even bother with channel delivery choices on room TV’s. They are just too hard to figure out from one hotel to the next. All I really care about is that I have good broadband access and I’m golden. I can pretty much be just as satisfied as I am at home with whatever service portals I choose. In my case I tend to want Hulu, Prime and Netflix. Apple TV and Peacock are nice-to-have’s but if I have my main three, all is well with the world. I also love the internet because everything I care about informationally is on the cloud now from my written works, to my spreadsheets, to my presentations to my pictures and videos and anyh other formats I choose to store stuff in. I consider my Dropbox to be perhaps the most important repository of my stuff anywhere. Its more important than my bedside table drawer or any drawer in my office. I can survive the loss of lots of things, but please don’t do anything to harm my Dropbox files or I am lost. And then, of course, there is the plethora of data, information and news feed access that I get over the internet. I am not altogether sure how we all survived before the internet. I occasionally hear someone suggest that life would be easier and better is we didn’t have smartphones of computers or the damn internet, and I just cannot imagine what they are thinking when they say that.
I know Kim and I lead very different lives in one sense. I am all about spreadsheets and writing stories in one form or another and she is all about singing and performing. I will sit in the living room pounding away on my iPad and she will be in the bedroom with all her music papers all around her for her next show, listening to specific songs and figuring out what she needs to figure out. SHe has gravitated to a leadership and mentorship role with her singing. With her small jazz ensemble she really suggests the songs and the basic arrangements because the rest of the guys just like to play what they like to play and are glad to have someone else giving them some direction in their selections. In terms of her vocals group, Encore, she is now the director of the shows, which is to say that she stages the productions and gives guidance and direction to the members of the ensemble in how best to perform their respective roles. Her job is less about the music and more about the staging, but just yesterday she was coaching one of the other members in how best to sing a particular song. The thing is that very little of that requires being online, but I think she does use the internet a little to access certain sheet music and thematic parts of shows they are trying to draw from.
But both Kim and I use the internet every day (literally) for e-commerce. I remember back when we started Beehive Ventures in 2000, we had just witnesses the big late 90’s internet boom and then watched it all come crashing to earth during the dot.bomb that started in March, 2000. We had allowed ourselves to get convinced that brick and mortar commerce was dead and that online commerce would literally take over everything. The dot.bomb showed us how wrong we were…but then again, no. We were not wrong, we just had the timing and bit off. Timing is everything in life, especially in investing. Since 2000 there has been a slow but relentless shift away from brick and mortar retail, but not quite as pervasive as we all expected. Malls have taken a nose-dive, and while there are still stores, I think its safe to say that the steady growth of e-commerce can be expected to keep marching forward. We are at about 16% of retail now steadily being done online and, to be honest, when I saw that number, I thought it was too low.
What don’t we buy online these days? When we were driving through some remote areas of Northern California and Oregon last week and we would comment about how challenging it must be for people in these remote spots to get a quart of milk or a tank of gas (we were always surprised how far and few the gas stations or markets seemed to be), someone would quip that they probably just buy their stuff on Amazon. With 4,815 stores in the US, almost 100 per state, Walmart is still the biggest retailer in the U.S. with over $611 billion in sales. But Amazon is a close second with $575 billion. That says to me that in reality we are now at a point where half our retail sales are e-commerce, not just 16% (I do understand why that’s not so, but that;s how it feels to me).
In the last two days, I probably bought five things online, ranging from a specialty window washing tool to some specific astringents to get rust stains out of tile. Everything I ordered was on Amazon and it was all accomplished with one click using my pre-loaded credit card information, so it was painless and quick. Most of it was delivered later the same day or the next day at latest at no added charge. I almost can’t imagine how it makes sense to sell me a $7 product that they then drive up my driveway and leave on my front steps so I don’t have to drive the 5 miles into Escondido or San Marcos, use the gas or EV Kw’s, traipse in and out of the store and take up an hour or more of my not so very valuable time most of the time.
I know what you’re thinking. You figure for generic items this might be easy enough to do, but what about specialty items or, more significantly, things that have aesthetic content that you would rather see and feel up-close to test the quality attributes you may feel are important. How many items have you bought online or from a catalogue and found they just did not stack up to your expectations when they arrive? Given that I am loathe to return stuff, I am the guy most at risk of having to settle for something less than I really wanted. Just the other day, our friend Melisa told me she had bought a stone Japanese lantern online and that when it came she was very disappointed with the quality. To her credit, she felt she could tart it up in a way that would still make it work for her purposes. But clearly, for a careful shopper like Melisa, it is still a crapshoot getting something good when you shop for things on a price/value basis.
Well, I am glad to report that sometimes it does work out. I recently decided that we needed to replace our deck furniture, which consisted of a large synthetic wicker sectional sofa and lounge chair set and a bistro table and chairs. I went online and found a range from $1,700 to $17,000 to replace the set in the color (red Sunbrella cushions) which we wanted and had. I knew the important features to check on like Sunbrella fabric, cushion thickness, construction materials and dimensions, I found a full set for under $5,000, delivered to my door within two weeks and white gloves set-up. I felt particularly good that our red color seemed to be cheaper than the more normal popular generic colors like grey or beige. It was not without some trepidation that I placed the order after getting buy-in from Kim. Yesterday it came and got set up (the crew was top-notch and efficient). And here’s the best news. It was everything and more than I had hoped for. Kim and I sat on the set in amazement. They say that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. Well, this digital blind squirrel is enjoying his acorn as I write this.