Just reading Andrew Cooper is extending dStore offline with a retail 2.0 move. From Smart Company:

Cooper is scouting stores that are around 800 square metres; the front half of the store will contain merchandise while the back half will be a small warehouse. Customers will be able to order in-store web kiosks and either pick up their goods on the spot (if in range) or have them delivered the next day.

Feels like a contradiction doesn’t it .. going offline to extend reach? As an online business, if you can’t extend globally - with conventional wisdom being this is the one true path - where do you go otherwise? Where are those customers that you’re not connecting with today? Ans: they’re in every suburb of every city of our wee little country. Local retail gets you in front of people you just can’t reach with a purely online play. Scoop up 5% of 200 million Americans .. And your online business will fly .. but 5% of 20 million Australians is a completely different set of numbers.

Way to go dStore .. way to go Andrew Cooper. Let’s see local retail taken to the next level.

It’s now 7.20am, Adelaide Airport, and I’ve just finished my cibo breakfast. I arrived about 7 mins outside the 45min checkin window Tiger stipulate. Ok .. I’m cabin baggage only .. with kiosk check in I’ll be able to head straight to the gate for a full 30 mins before take off. Hmmm .. No kiosks. Manual checkin overflows with people backed up prob 40 deep. 2 staff wipe sweat off their brow trying to get everyone through. No staff working the queue, streamlining the process. Ok, think i’ll head straight to boarding and checkin there. Wrong move, turned around, back to queue, time dissapears and missed flight!

Dang. Tiger lesson learned. Be on time or else! Jump on adioso.com (via iPhone) next avail flight out is virgin, booked online, confirmation sent, checked in via kiosk, boarding pass issued in seconds, no queues and voilà… Here I am drinking coffee waiting for my flight.

As chief anything-tech-I-gotta-handle, I’m generally the one who keeps the content flowing into the system (big props to Andrew who tackles TV and kids discs .. sick of Barbie yet Andy?). We add about 60 titles a month, from new release to back catalogue and that’s a lot of info and images. We’re no Quickflix with a dedicated content team .. we run on the smell of an oily rag.

But c’mon film makers and distributors! Sometimes finding poster art to promote your film is like digging for gold. You spend plenty of dosh to make your film, but forget that couple of grand to create some great poster art and put it on your website. C’MON! give a brother a break. I dig and dig and dig to try and find something hi-res. We’ve got the best cover art in the business (prove me wrong) but that’s a killer to pull together. I’m trying to get Storage (www.storagethemovie.com) in the system at the ‘mo. Just a little Aussie indie thriller which we’ve bought one copy of .. but can I find some dang poster art? Nup. It won’t be the first time I’ve screen capped a website and put some cover art together myself. And whilst I could wait for the actual DVD and scan it (ala Quickflix, Bigpondmovies and just about everyone else), poster art is typically a quality grade above what ends up on the DVD cover - so that’s what I want.

Yikes! I can’t believe it’s been 3 months since I posted here. Sorry everyone! Life is busy here at APPLEBOX and we’re still humming along nicely. Don’t forget we have our facebook page that Andrew keeps turning over and twitter 140 character movie reviews (put your sunnies on ’cause the green might blind you). James is chiming in as well.

But back to Think Global, Shop Local - Nice slogan! Been around for years I’m sure, but I noticed it down in Port Melbourne the other day (near our friends at glued.com.au) .. and I like it! sorta sums us up nicely.