ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512260007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
TYPE: NEW RIVER VALLEY CURRENT
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Wade's Foods, with six stores throughout the New River Valley, has become an international supplier of flowers through the Internet.
And those may be just seeds of what it will sell electronically.
"An advantage that we have at Wade's Foods is the forward thinking of our owner/manager team," said David McIntyre, Wade's data-processing manager.
A favorite anecdote in the Blacksburg Electronic Village is how a computer browser in Kuwait hit Wade's home page and used it to send flowers to Pennsylvania.
More recent flower orders came from Belgium. Another came from a Virginia Tech student. "They just happened onto our page," McIntyre said.
"We have regular orders from a military base in Korea," with military personnel sending floral arrangements to loved ones at home, he said.
McIntyre and Ron Rogers operate from a computer-filled room over the Wade's store in Christiansburg. McIntyre and Rogers are known informally as Wade's R&D department, and they do a lot of research and development to keep Wade's positioned for the computer revolution.
McIntyre has been with Wade's for almost 20 years. Originally from the Washington, D.C., area, he came to the New River Valley in the 1970s as a Virginia Tech student.
"The way we got started on this, the owner saw some information on it in early BEV meetings," McIntyre said.
Lowell Wade sent McIntyre to other BEV meetings. ``I heard what they had, and I said, `This is a neat idea,''' McIntyre said.
At this point, Internet shopping accessibility cannot be justified economically. The cost to keep services available 24 hours a day and to check regularly to see if any orders have come in exceeds total profits. In McIntyre's words, orders "trickle in."
He said he hopes orders will pick up with a new product, CarePacks, which parents can order on the Internet for their children in college.
"I know parents that go seriously out of their way to take care of their young ones who have recently gone to college,'' McIntyre said. "They will drive hundreds of miles to deliver food to their loved ones." This way, they can limit their driving to the information superhighway.
One CarePack is designated "Smart One." It is illustrated with a picture of items such as low-fat popcorn, fruits, vitamins and soups. The customer, who can be anywhere in the country, brings up the specific item by name and clicks on the flavor.
Wade's also offers gift certificates online.
Parents can put restrictions on them (no alcoholic beverages or tobacco products, for example), or they can limit their use to food purchases only.
Another offer is prepaid telephone cards, which prevent students from making a lot of collect calls to their parents.
For CarePacks, the sender gives the delivery address or selects the pickup option, and whether payment will be on delivery or by credit card. A note can even be enclosed.
The first two orders were for student birthdays.
A parent from Nebraska bought a large basic food package with a special cake added on. "We fresh-baked that cake that morning," McIntyre said. The person also needed some Virginia Tech sweat pants, so Wade's included them in the package.
In the second order, a mother in New York wanted her daughter to receive 18 giant chocolate chip cookies, 18 pink silk roses and 18 Mylar balloons. She had thought she would have to contact a florist, a baker, and someone to deliver balloons. "We could do the whole thing," McIntyre said.
The service offers four basic packages, to which customers can add special items. They can be shipped anywhere in the United States, and can be ordered online at http:/www.bnt.com/wades/carepack/.
The CarePacks are not limited to students. They can be sent to retirement homes, for example, and packages are being designed with that in mind.
"I can send a box of goodies to the person that has taken care of me," McIntyre said. Surveys have been made among residents of Warm Hearth Retirement Village to determine what kind of items they would like. Nurses and hospital staffs also have been interviewed to come up with good senior packages.
When will area residents be able to order their groceries online from Wade's?
"Everybody asks about that," McIntyre said. "We don't have any plans for online ordering at this time. That could change at any time."
The demonstration software is all set up. It starts with a picture of an empty grocery cart, which begins to fill as items are "clicked" into it.
Another option would be a standard customer package, to save the customer from starting a new order from the beginning each time. "You can add to or take away from your standard thing."
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. Wades data processing manager with some ofby CNBthe items that the grocer sells online. The food box is called a
"CarePack." Flowers also are popular items. color.