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Product-Foundry / embodiedmaking-com

Old Embodied Making commercial site
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Stories for Fruent #28

Open neelkanta opened 11 years ago

neelkanta commented 11 years ago
  1. I have a small business, and I would like my customers to know my opening and closing times easily. I often have to go out for a little while, and when I do, I shut the store for a few moments. I would like my customers to know that I am out for a short while, and that I will be back soon! I would like to maintain this in 1 simple place, and I would like my other solutions on the web, like my webshop, to get this information.
  2. All these different branches of the supermarket have different opening times. I would like to know the opening times of their different branches without spending too much time trying to scour and search the content on some corporate website.
  3. I arrived at a shop to pick up my package, only to find that it was closed. The sign on the shop says "back in 1 hour", but I wish I didn't have to travel all this way to find this out. I have another appointment, so I can't wait. I'll try again tomorrow.
  4. I need to get some medicine urgently. I need to know if there is a Pharmacy near me that is open this late at night.
  5. I am about to make some deliveries to a facility so that customers can pick-up the packages later. I want to be sure that there is someone at the facility who will be there when I get there. There are 20 packages in total, and I don't want the guy to be surprised when I show up. Worse, I don't want to wait around on the street trying to park my big truck while he makes some space in his small shop for the 20 packages. I want him to be prepared when I get there, and it would be nice if he even had a trolley or something to help me offload the packages.
  6. I run up a small shop, and I offer it as a pickup facility. I need to know a safe time to pop out for lunch. If someone is planning on coming to the store in the next 30 minutes or so, it would be nice if they would let me know slightly in advance.
  7. My wife recently changed her job, which now requires her to spend a lot of time commuting. We made a few purchases for her new job, and one of the purchases was an e-book reader which she could use on her long commute. We bought the e-book reader from a webshop in the Netherlands (coolblue.nl), but we found the prices of the accessories for the e-book (e.g. the cover) very high. So we checked out some other websites, and found a seller on Amazon.co.uk (Cover-up accessories) with a competitive price for the cover we wanted. We ordered both the e-book reader from Coolblue in the Netherlands and the e-book reader's cover from Cover-up accessories in the UK on the same day. We also ordered a new bag for her commuting from Amazon.co.uk, but this offer was from Amazon itself and not a seller on Amazon. Coolblue was very efficient. We received the e-book reader the very next day in a bright blue box with Coolblue's logo on it. The bag we had ordered from Amazon.co.uk also arrived 2 days later in a distinctive Amazon box. We were waiting anxiously for the e-book reader's cover to arrive, and in the interim, my wife found a small plastic bag to carry the e-book reader. After a few days, we returned from our respective workplaces to find a slip from GLS (a logistics company) that they had tried to deliver a package while we were away. There were 3 options on the slip: We will try and deliver your package on ; Please call 09003929 @ 10 cents per minute to make an appointment; We left the package with your neighbour on . The slip had ticked off the 2nd option, and we called the premium number to make a booking to pick up the package. As the original delivery costs were quite low and did not cover multiple delivery attempts to our door, we were given the option of either paying more for the delivery (with the extra cash on delivery) or picking up the package from a location in our neighbourhood. We chose the latter option, and the customer service agent provided us with an address for pick-up, which was a bicycle shop in the same city. We had never heard of it, but we were assured that it was a convenient location, and that the package would be there the next day for pick-up. Two days later, I had a day off work, and I decided to cycle over to the shop in my small Brompton bike to pick up the package. I took a small Eastpak bag to put the e-book reader cover in case it rained. I then looked-up the location of the shop, and it turned out to be 6 kms. away from our house. It was a sunny day, so I didn't mind cycling, but I am sure I would be a bit more annoyed if it happened to be raining that day. It took a while to find the shop, which was tucked away in a small corner down a small street. Fortunately the GPS on my smartphone was able to find the shop. Entering the shop, I found it quite empty, and went over to the counter where 3 men (all staff) were chatting. One of them turned around to help me out, and I gave him the delivery slip and told him that I was over to pick up my package. He took the slip, and I could here him mumbling the last two digits of the consignment number, "39...39". He was looking for the package in his back room, where there were all sorts of bicycle parts in rickety wooden shelves, and a few packages crammed into the narrow shelves. "It's 35", I yelled out, anxious that he didn't give me the wrong package. He looked at the slip again, and acknowledge the incorrect number. "These truck drivers just scribble the number before running to the next delivery!", he explained. "I can't find your package here though. There are only 4 packages here, and yours is not one of them." I was a bit crestfallen at this stage, and I wasn't sure if he wasn't looking properly or the logistics company had goofed up. I confidently told him that I was sure the package had arrived because I had spoken to the logistics company this morning, and they confirmed that the package was delivered. Of course, I had done nothing of this sort. He went back in to check again, and this time he found the package on one of the top shelves. "I'm a short man, and I didn't see the package on the top shelf!", he explained as he brought out a humoungous package, which surely was a waste of packaging if all it contained was a small e-book reader cover. I asked him if I could open the package, and he was happy to let me do so. It was a heavy package, and I opened it to find a bed-sheet cover set. I was a bit surprised, and I asked him to check the package number again. He did, and it was the correct number. I signed for the package, still a bit anxious that I had picked up the wrong package. I had a vague suspicion that my wife might have ordered the bed-sheet a while ago. Luckily I was able to strap the package to the rear-rack of my bicycle. Before I left, I asked the man in the bicycle shop whether he got a lot of packages every day for pick-up. "Around 8 a day. And believe it or not, I only get paid 40 cents for each package. But in a way its worth it because I get a lot of people in here who discover my shop as a consequence of picking up their package." I didn't want to call my wife at her new job to find out if the package was the right one, and I assumed it was. That evening, after she returned from work, he remembered that she had ordered the bed-sheet a month ago from a large online catalog company and had completely forgotten about it. We waited for a few more days, waiting for the e-book reader's cover to arrive. The online status on Amazon for the package gave the status "dispatched" although I had no real clue what this meant. After almost 6 days had passed, and I contacted the Cover-up accessories through Amazon.co.uk online interface to contact the seller. After 2 days, I received the following response by email from the user "Cover-Up Accessories - Amazon Marketplace dcksrngv98nbvqq@marketplace.amazon.co.uk": Thank you for your email. Your order was dispatched from our warehouse in the UK on 4. June Unfortunately we are not able to give you a tracking number as all our international orders are sent via standard. Royal Mail Airmail which is a non-tracked service. Most of our orders to the Netherlands take around 7 - 14 working days to arrive, however, occasionally, we do get delays caused by the postal courier and you should allow up to 21 working days for your order to arrive. If your order hasn't arrived within that time, please do not hesitate to contact us again and we will look into the situation further. Kind regards, Liz Bunston, eBook Accessories We still haven't got the package, but if we are not home on that day, I might be back in some other shop I've never been to pick it up. In retrospect, the e-book cover was 10 euros more expensive on Coolblue. Perhaps I was better off buying it all on the same shop.