Dec 16

FogShip

How to Ship Anything: My hero Joel Spolsky details a fascinating journey down the road of creating a process to ship all the DVDs people have been ordering.

My estimate was that it took about three minutes of labor per order, and we only got it that low because we were batching them up. Worse, it took someone skilled in SQL queries and Mail Merge to create the labels.

Last weekend, I thought, there’s got to be an easier way. I spent some time researching tools on the Internet for making this stuff easier, and on Monday, I started building our new Super Duper Shipping System, aka FogShip, which took about three days to set up, program, and debug.

You may think this is off-topic, but he gets seriously geeked out. Somewhere along the way, he combines SQL, Access reports, XML, a bar code reader, and an industrial-strength laer printer.

by Deane   December 16, 2005 5:05 AM   |
  tags: 
Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek, Aardvark'd

Comments

by Miguel,   December 16, 2005 9:58 AM  

And this is why I ready Gadgetopia.... I run an online cigar store on my free time, and have been using click n ship to ship products since I got started last year. I'm quickly out growing my current system and was planning on spending a couple days over my xmas break doing research for another solution.

Thanks for doing it for me ;-)

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