But in the real world, the time it takes to do anything costs money. We're all on the lookout for ways to cut seconds or minutes or hours without cutting corners. There are way too many businesses trimming time by putting out a crappy product or a slack service. A few weeks ago, I pointed out several ways to save time and money when shipping to your small business customers. An alert reader steered me toward SmartShip, a site that figures rates, delivery times, and dates for express packages sent via Federal Express, Airborne, UPS, and the United States Postal Service.
Someone has to drive to the store, wander down the aisles, stand in the checkout line, drive back.
What a waste. No wonder telephone ordering from a catalog is so popular. But Internet ordering may be even faster. At OfficeMax, for instance, businesses can create ordering templates for frequently-purchased or favorite items. OfficeMax also lets you save an order, then later return to it to add more before placing that order.