Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Globalization vs Localization

Recently I made two purchases on the internet. The first thing that I bought were two books. A typical globalized transaction:

  1. I found these books while commenting an article from an Austrian guy
  2. I did a search which brought me to an American website: Mind Hacks
  3. So I logged in on the Austrian portal of Amazon
  4. As you know, this site is only a modified version of the German Amazon
  5. I found out that these books were cheaper by an alternative seller in the UK
  6. A week later the books arrived and on the envelope it said:
  7. Paperbackshop.co.uk from the UK
  8. But the address was from Illinois USA
  9. Interestingly the stamp said: sent from Niederaula in Germany (written in French)
  10. and then i was sent all the way to Austria
On the other hand, last Sunday I bought two packs of chili seeds on eBay. As I found out after the purchase, the seller lives about 10 walking minutes from my home. So today I just walked over there to buy them and save the shipping money.

So one transaction involved 4 countries from half around the globe and 3 languages, while the other was done within less than 2 kilometers from my home. Now that is globalization vs. localization

1 comment:

Chandira said...

Yes.. Ever heard of macrobiotic food? Same idea, but applied to food. Keeping it local and seasonal is apparently a lot better for your body, and for the environment, when all the shipping fuel, and packaging, etc, isn't needed. Plus, it supports your local economy.
It's a great thing to do. Until you get a craving for pineapple in December.. ;-)