Final Customer Purchasing from an Intermediary of the Product

Use Steps: Use steps include all the Final customer's activities to find the appropriate product category at the Intermediary, to choose among the alternatives to the product and to take delivery of the product.

B.
Resources: Reduce resources required for the use of the product

2.
Time: Reduce the time the customer must spend with the product

A. Reduce steps the customer must use with the product

Reduce customer steps in the product process
Move information electronically

Add electronic communication to ordering system

No.	Year	SIC	Note
1	1983	5000	Fizzazz apparel stores has begun 24-hour service via electronic terminals at its stores. "It smiles all the time, it says good morning, it has almost perfect knowledge of the inventory."
2	2002	5331	Each store at Home Depot has around seven or eight carts equipped with mobile computers and handheld scanners that enable roving employees to ring up items in a shopper's cart. The scanners, also know as "line busters", retrieve prices from the store's product database and print out a claim check that can be processed by the cashier.
3	2004	5400	Retailers are testing finger-identification technology that allows customers to leave their wallets at home. To make a purchase, the customers puts his finger into a scanner, enters a seven- to 10-digit number to confirm his identity, then links to the checking or credit accounts on file. Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., which owns a franchisor of 120 U.S. supermarkets, expects to make this available in all of its stores in the next few years. Bi-Lo, a supermarket chain the Southeast owned by Ahold NV, uses this technology at 176 of its supermarkets for cashing customers' payroll checks.
4	2002	5411	FreshDirect is designed to handle up to 16,000 orders per day. The company's system takes advantage of the centralized processing that online delivery affords. They deliver to only five zip codes mostly in Manhattan and are adding new ones slowly. They seek densely populated areas because it keeps delivery costs low.
5	2004	5411	Supermarket operators say the shop by touch devices will make shopping faster and easier, build customer loyalty by tailoring discounts and make for a smoother shopping experience.
6	2004	5411	Customers at four Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. stores in Charleston and Columbia, S.C. will be able to pay for their groceries by placing their finger on a scanner at checkout, eliminating the need for cash, checks or credit cards.
7	Undated	5600	CyerSource opened its Software.net in November to sell software to people who don't want to visit a store. They can take delivery via either FedEx or modem. On-line transactions are conducted through encryption-secure software from Netscape.
8	2002	5812	In November Starbucks began offering prepaid Starbucks cards priced at $5 to $500. It has sold 70 million of these cards.
9	1998	5942	Borders book retailer introduced its "Title Sleuth" in-store kiosk in 1998. The kiosk helps customers find titles and buy online at Borders' Web site, which is run in conjunction with Amazon.com. In some cases, special orders have gone up by 20%.
10	2002	6162	Countrywide and Washington Mutual Inc. are two of the nation's top five mortgage lenders. Washington Mutual made its brokers and sales staff begin using the Web to process applications resulting in $60 billion in online volume in six months.
11	1988	6211	C. Schwab is the only major discount firm investing resources in development of high-tech computer-trading capabilities–speeds its services for customers.
12	2002	6531	Both zipRealty and eRealty say they can afford to charge lower commissions because they automate many services traditionally performed by an agent, such as notifying home buyers of new home listings that fit their criteria.
13	2001	7375	Microsoft is showing progress in winning users from AOL and other Internet access services. The company is investing heavily in Internet properties. The .Net initiative aims to tie applications such as the Windows operating system and personal productivity software to Web services. The Passport technology identifies web users to Internet services by storing personal information to facilitate e-commerce.
14	2004	7375	Yahoo has built a substantial retail business by catering to its regular users. It maintains profiles of shoppers, including delivery and credit card information. Yahoo also provides a universal shopping cart. The result is that shoppers can save 10 to 15 minutes each shopping session, compared with Google's price-comparison engine, dubbed Froogle, which can't store profiles or provide a digital cart.

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