New web-based business

A friend of mine introduced me to a new web-based business in the country. Photovendo takes photos of participants of major events like races which they then sell online. This is the "web-ification" of the unsolicited photo service we are always offered during weddings in Manila (which I swear must have hundreds of shots of me over the years).

The web interface is very simple: one just chooses the event that one participated in. The site asks for certain identifiers like a race number then the serves up thumbnail/-s of the picture/-s, with the requisite watermark, of course. The site then asks for a choice of payment: Paypal for VISA, MasterCard, AmEx, or Discover cards or BDO for local deposits. A fax of the deposit slip completes the settlement cycle. The service then delivers as many 4x6 copies of the ordered pictures to the listed address on Monday-Wednesday-Friday but only within selected Metro Manila areas including Pasig, Manila, Makati, Quezon City, Taguig, Mandaluyong, San Juan and on Sundays at a pick-up station at selected races.

On its face, the business is genius, the type that one wishes he thought of first. Then again, the settlement cycle bothers me in that it breaks from what should have been a seamless set-up where ordering was blended with the local non-credit payment option.