[ilamont]

> a mixture of Baker & Tayler (book distributors)

Having dealt with Baker & Taylor in the past, this doesn't surprise me in the least. It was one of the most technologically backwards companies I've ever dealt with. Purchase orders and reconciliations were still managed with paper, PDFs, and emails as of early 2020 (when I closed my account). I think at one point they even had me faxing documents in.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

A bit tangential but one of my favorite early amzn stories is when a small group from Ingram (at the time, the other major US book distributor) came to visit us in person (they were not very far away ... by design).

It was clear that they were utterly gobsmacked that a team of 3 or 4 people could have done what we have done in the time that we had done it. They had apparently contemplated getting into online retail directly, but saw two big problems: (a) legal and moral pushback from publishers who relied on Ingram just being a distributor (b) the technological challenge. I think at the time their IT staff numbered about 20 or so. They just couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Good times (there weren't very many of those for me in the first 14 months) :)