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