Hundreds and possibly thousands of presents did not get delivered on time and did not get placed under the tree for friends, family and children to open on Christmas morning. This act, or lack there-of, potentially killed the spirit of giving, Christmas and not to mention Santa’s reputation.
Hundreds and possibly thousands of businesses lowered prices, advertised new deals, and promised last minute, just in time, delivery of what everybody wanted to buy for Christmas.
Hundreds and possibly thousands of people bought into this hype and helped enable this online Internet retail thing to break Christmas.
Of course the Internet was not the real culprit, people were – and still are. Greed, instant gratification, broken promises, lack of planning, lack of resources, and the easy click of a mouse button all contributed to the breaking of Christmas. The Internet was just the latest delivery mechanism.
In my real job, I work with technology – and people – every day. I understand how technology can and often does make things better for people and businesses alike. I also work and deal with the risks involved with using this technology. But the ironic thing is, I spend most of my time, not dealing with the technology, but with the people.
And that is what is really important, not the technology, not the money, but the people and the relationships we build together.
Eventually retailers, vendors, logistic companies, technology geeks such as myself, and consumers will figure out what went wrong, make improvements and enable the system to work even better to deliver even more, even faster and – hopefully – time.
But that has nothing to do with Christmas.
Fumbled Returns 