You're absolutely right, they couldn't. Just over a year ago, Christopher Byron wrote a scathing piece about Kozmo for the New York Observer/MSNBC that made it quite clear that not only did Kozmo have a business plan as lame as every other dotcom's, but one with the added bonus of being literally physically impossible to implement:
Granted, it’s difficult to be precise about such things. But on the available evidence we may thus say with some confidence that were Kozmo.com ever to become, like Amazon.com, a $1 billion-plus per year (revenues) business, the company could arguably become the biggest private sector employer in America, with perhaps as many as 800,000 workers on its payroll —whole armies of them peddling frantically through America’s cities, knocking people down like bowling pins.
To put this in perspective: The only private-sector employer in America with more than 800,000 employeees is Wal-Mart, and the number-two employer, General Motors, is way down the list at 392,000. And practically all of them at least make more than minimum wage. There's no way Kozmo would ever manage to hire that many people for such a crappy job that pays that little money. And that's only their biggest impediment; the article lists several more, such as the fact they were spending 95% of their revenue just for the delivery. This company was doomed from day one.
posted by aaron at 9:42 PM on April 11, 2001
For starters, there is probably not a single neighborhood, in any of the cities that Kozmo.com now serves, where you can’t get the same exact stuff Kozmo is selling, by simply stepping outside your door and walking half a block in any direction.I'm not trying to defend kozmo or it's business plan, but the above sentence don't ring true for me. I live in a city yet Kozmo had lots of cds and dvds (and food items) that were not 1/2 block from me.
For starters, there is probably not a single neighborhood, in any of the cities that Kozmo.com now serves, where you can’t get the same exact stuff Kozmo is selling, by simply stepping outside your door and walking half a block in any direction.You've obviously never been to Atlanta. (Glad I left!) Kozmo was a lifesaver there.
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Of course, it's partially my fault. When I used to work at the Empire State Building, I'd order (this is before the minimum orders were instituted) a Snapple for $1.25 and have one of their orange-wrapped couriers bring it to me to save me the trouble of going down 76 floors.
And they'd do it. For free. Suckers.
Anyone else have any Kozmo abuse stories?
posted by anildash at 4:04 PM on April 11, 2001