| 5. Suppose you get so many orders from France that you figure it makes more sense logistically to bulk ship items to a central location in France and then drop ship from there with the French office merely acting as a forwarding location. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 6. Since demand from France is fairly predictable, you figure you can actually ship based on anticipated sales, shortening fulfillment time. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 7. Since you realize the drop ship location is fairly close to many of your customers, you can offer a saving to the customer by allowing them to physically travel to the warehouse and collect their goods. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 8. Since customers are frequently coming to pick up their orders, you realize you can neatly and logically order the items in your warehouse to facilitate easy retrieval of pickup orders. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 9. Since people are coming into the warehouse, it makes no sense to force them to do the purchasing online when they could just wander through the warehouse, decide what they want and purchase right there and then. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 10. Suppose you now figure out that it makes sense to advertise this warehouse space since people in the surrounding area could come in, wander through the aisles and make impulse purchases. Also, investing money in improving the physical appearance of the warehouse will also draw people in. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 11. You figure out that it makes sense to place multiple warehouses in different places around the country since this will attract more people from that local area. Surely this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario. 12. Given how logistically complicated this has become, you hire an entire French team who operate largely independently of the US parent office and manage the roll out of these fulfillment centers (they call them le store). Surely, but surely, this is roughly equivalent to the previous scenario! |
(This isn't getting into the question of whether your taxes are really buying those services (in the US, they are mostly redistributed to other people), but that's a separate matter.)