Amazonians to Amazon

The Romans (and possibly the mythological Amazonians) built roads in 800 CE. Not particularly good ones, no doubt, but roads nonetheless. Fun fact: most of said roads survive today, not bad for a bunch of half-naked people without machines 2000 years ago. Roads were the first – admittedly tiny – step towards efficient transport. It cut transport time drastically, for the era, of course, and we could finally transport something from A to B in the foreseeable future. The snakes, potholes, and frankly copious numbers of incompetent “thieves” didn’t make their lives any easier, but it was still better than trekking snakier, more pothole-y terrain with slightly less incompetent thieves. Imagine that….

What Watt? –

So started transport. We moved from thieves ridden windy roads to steam engines, courtesy of Mr. Watt, to airplanes to whatever Hyperloop is. I honestly can’t keep track anymore. But then the internet came along (great, more things I can’t keep track of) and turned the entire status quo on its head. But now, we could transport things using computers rather than just doing fancy pants calculations on ‘em and not much else. The internet is essentially the next phase of transport evolution.

Let’s say you order an apple from Amazon. I don’t know why anyone in their right minds would do that, but hey, it’s just a hypothetical scenario. I hope.

Assuming you’re in London and your apple comes from Dartmouth , it would take 2 hours today via Amazon :)

1 day in 1880

1.5 Weeks in the 17th century

Longer than vaguely comfortable in the 14th century

See? Though infrastructure is important and all, we need the internet for logistical and communication purposes. It is supremely difficult to transport basically anything without said internet today. It makes our (apparently quite valuable) apple not only easy to order but also makes transportation exponentially easier. James Watt would likely get a heart attack if he somehow made it into the 21st century.

E(xcellent)-Commerce –

Hence e-commerce companies. The above reasons have led to them popping up faster than mushrooms after a rainy day (which is, somewhat fittingly, basically every single day in the UK).
However, most of these deal in electronics, clothes, hardware, tech et cetera. Others, like Amazon, deal in literally everything.

The point I’m trying to make here is that we rarely find great furniture companies online (No, Amazon doesn’t count, because as I said, they offer literally everything); be it because they’re afraid to do so, don’t understand the internet and its advantages or are plain dumb. Therefore transport in this industry is painfully slow. Brick and Mortar, sure, offer nigh instant delivery but offer basically no choice. Thankfully, we have some nice ones coming up with great choice and quick transport as well. Win-win.

Everyone here probably knows Wayfair and Loaf anyway, so no point blabbing about them here. Artisan Furniture is a good one that’s kinda new but coming up fast. They have all the stuff I mentioned plus drop ship and internet packaging. Definitely worth checking out. It’s exciting, to say the least, to see such a dizzying array of online furniture companies coming up. Who knows what the future holds for furniture as a whole.