My main goal right now is to bridge the technical gap. So in your analogy, I would be the trucking service, but perhaps with special features like refrigerated trucks specifically for the grocery industry.
So yes, we aren't acting as a distributor, we're simply providing the tools to make self-distribution via the Internet more attractive, and with some features to help marketing, the other big challenge, to be more easily overcome by an indie. And with Internet, marketing is made significantly easier.
Let's say you want to run a trucking business. Your job is to take groceries -- any groceries - from point A to point B.
This makes you a storage and movement (warehouse and transportation) business. Your differentiators will be how easy and fast you can deliver whatever goods there are. Your customers are people who need to move all kinds of groceries, whether on the producer side or consumer side. You don't care. You're making your bucks on volume.
Let's say that instead of just trucking, now you are selling doughnuts. You paste a big sign on the side of your truck that says "Doughnuts!" You don't make the doughnuts, you just get them to people.
This puts you in the distribution business. This is much different than the trucking business. In this business, people care about quality of product and whether or not you're delivering the right kinds of doughnuts to the right people. Your ability to find the right doughnut and get it to the right person is what is going to make your business work (or not) Everything you do should be based around targeted quality delivery to the appropriate recipient. Volume doesn't matter as much any more. Targeted delivery does. You're not just hauling groceries from point A to point B, you're figuring out which exact thing needs to be where at what exact time. Much tougher (and potentially more profitable) problem.
But they're completely different business models, with different customers and different drivers.
It's just an analogy, of course. I hope that made my point clearer. I think you guys are in for a wild ride if you can get the details worked out.