As an online marketer you simply take for granted that whether you\u2019re shipping to Hollywood Beach, Florida or Hollywood Beach, California you\u2019re facing more or less the same logistics. However, if you were shipping wine you\u2019d find that it\u2019s a very different \u201ccase\u201d as you\u2019d be facing a mind-numbing jumble of regulations that vary not only from state to state but in some cases even county to county.<\/p>\n
Hollywood Beach, Florida, for example, is in Bay County, so it\u2019s fine to ship wine there – but if your customer was a few miles north in Washington County, it would be illegal. When the Amazon juggernaut announced that it was getting into the wine business after two earlier failed tries, many observers wondered whether their massive clout could overcome the regulatory obstacles or if it would be just another morass\u2026 and if it\u2019s possible to teach old net companies new tricks.<\/p>\n
With an eye to Wine.com\u2019s burgeoning revenue, which is expected to reach $80 million by the end of this year, Amazon has taken the big plunge into the wine biz. In a departure from its conventional business model, Amazon Wine is essentially a third party marketing service that leaves the wineries to deal with the befuddling regulations of where to ship and where not to ship. At first glance this system seems fraught with obstacles as it leaves the wineries exposed to fines and other legal problems while Amazon stays above the regulatory fray. While this may seem like the right way to go about it from Amazon\u2019s standpoint, the legal technicalities could prove to be more challenging. Would the law in \u201cdry counties\u201d interpret Amazon to be the actual \u201cseller\u201d with the winery being the \u201cdrop shipper?\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Amazon seems to be taking an approach that varies from its conventional business model, many long-standing online companies do have a tendency to become ossified over time. It\u2019s conventional wisdom that the brilliance and sheer genius of many online startups is diluted over time as the entrepreneurial spirit wanes and the bean counters take over. A company will tend to get into a groove and stay there even when all signs (and revenue) dictate that it\u2019s well past the time to shake things up.<\/p>\n
Even the mega-companies like Google that have embarked on a wide ranging (and to some, perplexing) strategy of diversification into completely unrelated territories can fall into the trap of acquiring their \u201cinnovations\u201d instead of developing them in-house. When they drop untold millions into buying supposedly innovative companies like their recent purchase of Buffer Box, it can lead you to wonder if the lights are on and anyone\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
Not only has Buffer Box\u2019s total income to date been zero, but it\u2019s a model that any first-year business student can tell you is terminally flawed. Buffer Box provides handy, widely-located, temporary PIN-openable \u201cP.O. Boxes\u201d to receive single items. That\u2019s great until you consider that most companies will only ship products to the address on the customer\u2019s credit card! Not to mention it\u2019s a drug smuggler\u2019s dream shipping system. What was Google thinking? They were likely just knee-jerk acquisition-reacting, not thinking at all.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an old chestnut that entrepreneurs shouldn\u2019t manage and managers shouldn\u2019t launch companies. As an online marketer you might just be the one who finally explodes this incongruous fallacy. There has to be a way to keep that ember alive through the drudge of running the business itself, so go out and find it. You should realize that you don\u2019t have to be a Steve Jobs to continually reinvent your company in order to make it a long term market leader. You just have to be smart, savvy and be willing to break out of the mold to prioritize your most important asset: Creativity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As an online marketer you simply take for granted that whether you\u2019re shipping to Hollywood Beach, Florida or Hollywood Beach, California you\u2019re facing more or less the same logistics. However, if you were shipping wine you\u2019d find that it\u2019s a very different \u201ccase\u201d as you\u2019d be facing a mind-numbing jumble of regulations that vary not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\n