[gregjor]

If I heard this startup pitch I would want to know what experience you have in retailing and especially logistics. I wouldn't care at all about your web or programming expertise.

Suppose you were doing this without computers or the web. Customers filled out a paper order form and you then fulfilled their standing orders. This is very similar to what Schwann's and diaper services do now, and what milk trucks did when I was a kid. 75% of the problems you need to solve will be in old-fashioned logistics: purchasing, warehousing, picking, packing, shipping. Almost all of the remaining work will be customer service: returns, fixing mistakes, handling late deliveries and billing issues, etc.

Now add a web site to place and track orders to the business. It is a tiny part of the work required to launch and doesn't change any of the back-end "brick and mortar" stuff.

Amazon has the infrastructure in place to do both the hard (logistics/fulfillment/customer service) parts and the easy (web site) part. If you think this is something you can crank out in a weekend with a Ruby on Rails book good luck.