Open Case: A Tale of Two Countries
(or How E-business Kept a Groom out of Hot Water)

Note: The following story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (Sally) and the guilty (Jim)
Jim and Sally were engaged to be married in August. In order to help pay for the wedding and the subsequent honeymoon in Australia, Jim decided to take a short-term assignment in India during that same summer. While that meant that he would be out of the country for the last part of the wedding planning process, Sally agreed that the extra money would be worth it. (Of course, Jim was secretly glad to miss as much of the planning as possible. What he did not know was that Sally was also happy to have him absent for the last minute planning!)
So, Jim flew to Bangalore, India that July, happy in the knowledge that the trip was undertaken with the blessing of his bride-to-be. After two weeks in Bangalore, Jim realized to his immediate horror that Sally’s birthday would occur in just a few days. Woops! Although Jim had already purchased some very nice jewelry for Sally from a local (Indian) craft emporium, there was no practical way to get it to her in time for her birthday. Jim was dumb enough to have almost forgotten his fiancée’s birthday, but he was smart enough to know that he had better have a nice gift on her doorstep by her birthday.
Jim gave the crisis considerable thought. Then a possible solution occurred to him. What about buying something online? He remembered buying a book while on a long trip the previous summer. It was no problem for the bookseller to ship the book to any address Jim requested.
Seeing salvation in sight, Jim connected to the Internet and directed his Web browser to his favorite bookseller, “Bucket-o-Books.” He thought for a moment, and then used the Web site’s search function to look for books on Australia, the site of the upcoming honeymoon. Fortunately, Buckets has a good selection of travel books, and several potential gifts for Sally showed up in the search results. Jim read the online reviews from other Bucket customers. One of the books had almost unanimously favorable reviews so Jim clicked on the “add-to-cart” button.
Jim then clicked on the “view cart” button. The contents of his online shopping cart popped up on his monitor. He verified that the correct book was shown, and then went on to change the ship-to address to Sally’s home address. Jim was also quite happy to see that Buckets would gift wrap the book, and would even add a gift cart with a personal message from Jim. Jim pondered a few moments and came up with a nice sentiment for the card, type the message in the appropriate box on the Web-based form, clicked “submit” and waited for an order confirmation screen to appear. After a few moments, the confirmation screen appeared, indicating that all had gone well with the purchase. Jim sighed with relief. Crisis averted.
A couple of days before Sally’s birthday, Jim began wondering if the book had made it to Sally yet. He went back to the Buckets Web site and navigated to the customer service section, which allowed him to check the status of the shipment online. After a couple of minutes, Jim found the right area on the Web site and used the tracking number in an e-mail from Buckets that confirmed his order. Jim entered the number, clicked on “check status,” and in a few minute saw that the package was delivered the previous day. E-business to the rescue!