Ten-year-old Sarah Woods and I are on a plane this very minute, headed to New York for a few days so we can enjoy our mutual love of professional theater.

A generation ago, in order to arrange this trip I would have had to visit or call a travel agent, who would have named for me a few options I could choose from in terms of flights. We would have reviewed a handful of possible hotels. And in general it would not have been a quick process.

By contrast, I booked this trip myself with a few mouse clicks, and with every possible choice before me, which I narrowed down according to my own specific criteria. I was likewise able to find with one click the titles of all the available shows, and pick out our seats from a seating chart.

We're so used to this now that we've forgotten what an extraordinary convenience it is. With all my travel, if I had to go back to the old way I'd be very frustrated, to say the least.

Unless you have an extremely unusual itinerary, there's essentially never a reason to use the old method anymore, and anyone who still did would be at a significant disadvantage in terms of time and efficiency.

Well, there's no reason to think any kind of online business, including online stores, wouldn't be the same way: when the new method comes along, and it's a zillion times faster and more efficient and just plain works better in terms of getting you the data you need to run the most successful store, it makes no sense to keep doing the equivalent of calling a travel agent.

We've been talking about the various pieces of the puzzle when it comes to running an online store (including what to sell, of course), probably the most common form of online business, while taking into account technological advances that are sure to be your secret weapon if you use them.

The folks at Amazing have been following the development of eCommerce over the years, keeping track of evolving best practices and reporting back on what works, in order better to train people to run their own stores. I don't think anyone can compete with them for the title of top leaders in helping people launch and scale eCommerce businesses.

All of the pieces of the puzzle we've been talking about this week come together in the full system they've just developed that takes full advantage of technology we didn't have even three years ago.

Here it is, dear friends:

https://www.tomwoods.com/thesystem

Tom Woods