Business
EmporWAY Corporation
EmporWAY Corporation is the kid's first wholesaler: it ships items one by one to the kid's customers and keeps the kid's money as credit. The kid finds its website, emporway.com, by researching on the laptop on the first day. Its warehouse on the outer rim of Maruf is planned for much later.
Description
EmporWAY.com is a plain green catalogue: each product with its wholesale price, its packed weight and its postage, and the kid's credit. It explains how to add credit: a money transfer, then a phone call with the code.
How it works
Single orders, paid up front
EmporWAY usually deals in pallets, but it ships single items to the kid's customers as long as every order is paid for up front. The kid keeps credit with EmporWAY: it ships an order once the credit covers the wholesale price and the postage, and the order reaches the customer 4 days later. Postage is First-Class mail by weight (33 cents for the first ounce, 22 cents for each one more, with an ounce of packing), or Priority at $3.20 above 13 ounces.
To add credit, the kid sends a money transfer from a counter downtown, paying a commission of a few percent, and calls the transfer code in on the phone.
Things that go wrong
- Out of stock: when EmporWAY goes to ship an order, the item can be out for 3 to 7 days. Every order that would ship meanwhile is cancelled and its customer refunded; EmporWAY takes nothing.
- Price rise: EmporWAY can raise a product's price by 10 to 25% for good. The kid's selling price stays, so the kid keeps less.
People
Rick, the warehouse sales manager, answers the trade line from the warehouse floor: busy and gruff, but fair.
Locations
The warehouse stands on the industrial outer rim of Maruf, by the ring road. It is planned for much later and not built yet: it is built only when the story takes the kid there.
Busy and practical: forklifts, pallets and trucks. The design brief for its reference pictures asks for a large single-storey warehouse on a fenced lot, with a two-storey office block at the front (reception, a sales office with phones, a break room), loading docks with roll-up doors and a truck yard. Inside: tall pallet racking, shrink-wrapped pallets, and a packing area with stacks of small parcels for single-item shipping. The owner designs the place when it is built; the brief is a starting point, not the design.
On Jul 15, 2000 the kid hears it before seeing it: forklift horns and crates dropping behind Rick on the phone.
In the game
In the story
- Jul 3, 2000, the first day: after 24 hours of research on Dad's old laptop, the kid finds EmporWAY.com and its phone number, and EmporWAY goes into the phone's contacts.
- Jul 15, 2000, chapter day 2: the kid studies the catalogue and calls the trade line. Rick opens an account under the kid's name, honestly on the first try or after a hang-up and an apology.
- Nov 2, 2000, chapter day 10: the first order comes in, and the kid pays EmporWAY the same day so it ships.
Mentioned in
EmporWAY Corporation, orders and distribution. Rick speaking. What's your account number?
EmporWAY Corporation, orders and distribution. Rick speaking. What's your account number?
EmporWAY Corporation. Make it quick, I'm loading a freight truck.