When last we spoke of the Tractor Supply Company (Dec. '08) we questioned their thinking with regard to online marketing. Not "thinking" so much as just fundamental lack of awareness of facet after facet of their own online business.
A lucid and informative comment by a former TSC manager was appended there that explained that the strange emtpy inventory at the online store was actually an artifact of the management M.O. that abhors any level of inventory aging.
My complaint was that they didn't get that online sales and home-delivery was good for them and their customers and, not to mention, it's very "green".
Well; they've surely slapped me in the face. LOL. TSC now announces the antithesis of home-delivery: a truly unique and forward thinking concept: "Ship To Store".
Instead of ordering online and having your product delivered to your door in a weak mimic of every other online sales model, the folks at TSC have devised a plan whereby you order online but then drive over to the store to pick it up!
Genius!
Right?
Oh... wait. This is the old "catalog store" model used by Sears and Montgomery-Ward. The old and defunct and, in this day and age of competing delivery services, quite decrepit business model.
TSC... if you're trying to be funny, you're getting pretty close.
