Alice is the coolest internet app around. It’s a website that allows consumers to buy directly from the manufacturer…with a promise of low, low prices because the products aren’t inflated by retail shelf stocking fees and other costs associated with driving traffic to retail.
They promise one box, though how that can be with purchases coming straight from the manufacturer is beyond me. Alice also offers free shipping, a product planner allowing users to restock based on past purchase dates, and a drag-and-drop interface even a caveman would love.
Though I haven’t done the deep dive on Alice, it is the future. It won’t cover fresh produce but that’s not too far down the road, no doubt available from a web start-up run by a smart farm consortium. Alice is taking baby steps which is the way to go. (I was in a meeting with a major packaged goods company and all of its agencies last week and only a handful had even heard of Alice.) This is how we — especially the next gen — will shop for staples. Alice reminds me of a post I wrote a couple of years ago suggesting that the size of home mail boxes will grow significantly as web commerce develops. Alice may not be the Amazon of its time, but if it gets the usability and customer delivery right it will be the template for the world’s biggest app. Peace!
