ABSTRACT

In May 2002, Dan and other members of eShip’s executive team had met with the –rm’s advisory board to discuss various U.S. entry strategies for eShip’s revolutionary ADM. A network of ADMs was conceived to be analogous to the ubiquitous ATMs that were an everyday part of American life. e ADM technology would allow consumers to direct shipments to a nearby ADM for

144 

package pickup or return, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7). e ADM would also provide carriers such as Federal Express (FedEx), United Parcel Service (UPS), DHL, and the United States Postal Service (USPS), a centralized delivery point, thereby reducing the considerable costs of servicing suburban and rural residential homes. A central component of eShip’s system was the webbased control and management software, dubbed the Last-Mile Information System (LAMIS). LAMIS provided an online, real-time, virtual hub between vendors (e.g., retailers, e-tailers), consumers, carriers, so-called landlords (those who owned the real estate on which the ADMs would physically be located), and the ADMs themselves. e system would notify consumers when their packages arrived at the designated ADM, generate an access code needed to retrieve the package, and enable vendors, carriers, and others to monitor capacity utilization, pickups, returns, technical problems, and a variety of other information.