The article was written in 1999, before the advent of internet-based commerce. Maybe that could have made things turn out differently for him? Interesting post!
I'm pretty surprised he had trouble getting 10,000 condoms.
I once helped organize a student conference and asked a manufacturer to donate 5,000 condoms, about one per day per participant. Yes, we were aiming high.
I noticed something was wrong when the truck driver started unloaded three pallets worth of condoms. They had sent us 5,000 boxes with 25 condoms each = 125,000.
During the next two years, we did manage to find a few events that gratefully took most of the load of our hands. But a few thousand remained in my basement and I learnt: there's nothing sadder than a thousand expired condoms.
> But a few thousand remained in my basement and I learnt: there's nothing sadder than a thousand expired condoms.
So you had several thousand at first and are sad that only 1000 is left when they expired? Sounds like you got laid a lot and I would not be sad about that ;)
> But a few thousand remained in my basement and I learnt: there's nothing sadder than a thousand expired condoms.
+1
I was once given a few thousand spare condoms after the G&L Mardi Gras in Sydney. By given, I mean they suddenly appeared in my house. Many were used in ways other than intended, like being filled with nitrous oxide :)
Surely today you would get them made in China at the same kind of total cost. No more lacerated fingers putting them together yourself. There are fulfillment companies that take your stock and then send them out to customers as orders come in. Setup a website that hooks into the fulfillment company process and you have a virtually no touch process.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 62.1 ms ] threadeBay revenue, 1999: $224.7 million
eBay revenue, 2015: $8,590 million
Edit: That's 38x
So it depends on your measure. eCommerce is still a relatively small percentage of GDP, 5.4% of US according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/250703/forecast-of-inter...
1999: 0.2%
2015: 8.4%
42x
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ECOMPCTSA
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/books/review/the-great-bea...
I once helped organize a student conference and asked a manufacturer to donate 5,000 condoms, about one per day per participant. Yes, we were aiming high.
I noticed something was wrong when the truck driver started unloaded three pallets worth of condoms. They had sent us 5,000 boxes with 25 condoms each = 125,000.
During the next two years, we did manage to find a few events that gratefully took most of the load of our hands. But a few thousand remained in my basement and I learnt: there's nothing sadder than a thousand expired condoms.
(probably not)
So you had several thousand at first and are sad that only 1000 is left when they expired? Sounds like you got laid a lot and I would not be sad about that ;)
+1
I was once given a few thousand spare condoms after the G&L Mardi Gras in Sydney. By given, I mean they suddenly appeared in my house. Many were used in ways other than intended, like being filled with nitrous oxide :)
Hehehehe, that's what condoms are for right?
(Business is like life, love and war: difficult)