
Alice.com Is Your Housekeeper And Personal Shopper Rolled Into One - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/22/alicecom-is-your-housekeeper-and-personal-shopper-rolled-into-one-easy-to-use-site/
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dpcan
I'm sorry, but you just can't solve a problem half-way these days.

You can't get milk or eggs from Alice.com right now. So, you go to the store
ANYWAY because you still need the milk and eggs. You need toilet paper too,
maybe some garbage bags. BUT, you don't buy them because they are IN THE MAIL.

"Dad, we need toilet paper!!!" "Quiet down kids, it's in the mail, should be
here this afternoon, just hold it.."

You have to be kidding me.

The selling point must be that it's cumbersome to carry toilet paper out of
the supermarket??

It's like those infomercials where you see people that can't figure out how to
use a blanket because it doesn't have sleeves.

Alice.com is just a "blanket with sleeves" to me until they can deliver
EVERYTHING.

(Side note: I read that the blanket with sleeves sold pretty well, so maybe
Alice.com DOES have a chance.... maybe)

~~~
brsanders
The idea is that it reminds you that you may be running low on an item before
you actually are 'stranded.'

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flinchreel
The entire front page is geared toward pushing me to sign up, but without
giving me any idea of the products I can get through the service. What's the
reasoning behind this? Why make me sign up for your service before I even know
what it is?

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GiraffeNecktie
If my housekeeper imagined that her job was only to buy the toilet paper on
time I would so fire her ass.

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vaksel
this is going to fail, Amazon has too big of an advantage over them

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-
save/details/index.ht...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-
save/details/index.html)

~~~
tcdent
Except this isn't really anything like Subscribe & Save.

As the article states, Alice sells products directly from the manufacturers
and "makes no retail margin" on the products they sell. The site is completely
ad supported.

Alice only _notifies_ you when you might be running out of a product, and I
assume will adjust it's notifications according to your ordering habits.
Amazon requires you to receive a shipment "every one, two, three or six
months", but allows you to cancel at anytime.

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Syama
i was excited until i found out they only deliver to 48 states and Hawaii aint
one of them

~~~
vaksel
it's because they offer free shipping, it would eat up too much $$$ to ship
there.

granted the easy option would have been for them to simply add a shipping
surcharge

