Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Patents Bad Service For Bad Customers
mikesd81 writes "Techdirt reports that Amazon has been awarded a patent for Generating Current Order Fulfillment Plans Based on Expected Future Orders. Essentially, if Amazon deems that you won't be a long time customer or ordering again soon, your order will take longer to be expedited."
This could be a blessing in disguise!
If another retailer takes forever and a day to ship your stuff, they open themselves up to a patent infringement suit!
This could be a boon for internet shoppers everywhere...
=Smidge=
As I said when this was posted on Techdirt, this system could encourage customers not to shop at amazon, because when you start shopping there the shipping takes longer. Appeasing a small group of users who make up the majority of purchases and irritating a larger group who make only occasional purchases is not the way to go.
Everything is subjective.
I can understand why you would DO this, but why in God's name would you patent it? Amazon already has the black eye from attempting to give targeted prices to members (oops) and a patent black eye by flouting the USPTO's decision on one-click. What business model is being protected by patenting the mechanism to put orders on the back burner?
Self-fulfilling prophecy much? It works both ways, guys--if you slow my order because you don't think I will be a good customer, guess what, you can be pretty sure I won't.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
This is not only a dumb thing to patent, but also something that is a dumb idea in general.
A) How are you going to prove that another company delayed an order for that reason? How would you be able to prove anything in a court of law, so your patent wouldn't be infringed on?
B) Why, oh why, would anyone use this idea? Delaying the orders of non-longtime customers or customers that are not extremely active is the wrong way to do things. First impressions count, and one of the reasons that I am such a Newegg fanatic is because my first order came overnight via UPS ground, extremely well packaged to boot.
If Amazon implements something like this, I'm not going to shop there out of principle.
Why is this different than any other enterprise? Bigger customers generally get preferential treatment. If two customers call me and have network issues, and I have billed one of them $50,000 in the past year, while the other one bought one compact flash card from me two years ago, which one am I going to take care of first?
Now, as to why they thought that patenting it was a good idea, I don't have a clue.
Well I would have no problem sending them a heaping pile of dung First Class. Can't say they could do the same for me.
Life is not for the lazy.
I hear that a certain large chain store already has prior art on this.
Why do they need a patent on being late on deliveries? they already are... and i do think we've seen prior art on this one :P
Patents are supposed to protect an inventor's invention so that other's can't duplicate it allowing the inventor to earn money for his invention. Generally speaking a patented idea is a good idea. Yet lately I'm seeing more and more patents being approved that just seem downright bad ideas. They are trying to protect themselves from potential 'bad customers'(being those that will only buy once or twice). How can someone even think of something as idiotic as this? Seriously? They're already marking some people as 'bad customers' before we've gotten our merchandise!!!
Amazon's delivery performance has degraded so greatly in the last year or two that I thought they were already doing something like this. I've been a big shopper with them since they began, and I have seen their delivery performance going into the sewer for quite some time. As their delivery performance suffered, my purchases from them have dropped-off to almost nothing. Whatever possessed them to think that a punishment would improve their sales is beyond my imaginiation. BN
so... Amazon Patents Good Service for Good Customers?
I know amazon is on The List of Evil and all, but really? How is this is bad?
And slow service will make me want to be a repeat customer?
Wonder if they account for shipping times as a factor in customer satisfaction, and thus loyality?
I once held an urgent order back for a week out of spite because it was chased up hourly for 2 days. Automating the process using a computer is obvious albeit totally unprofessional for a major corporation. Patents on "business methods" such as these will be the downfall of the patent system. We're actually fortunate that patent lawyers and the USPTO are busy working on it.
Amazon wishes to patent this as a form of obstructive competition. (Which seems to be the only use for software and process patents). If they hold a monopoly, nobody else in the commercial optimization space can offer software or business process design that includes this particular expression of Pareto optimization without fear of Amazon's lawyers. It is ugly, but because our government rewards this sort of behavior, it would be against the shareholder's best interests NOT to pursue such patents. Now, if the consuming public provide a massive negative reaction to this behavior, then the shareholders would be rightfully demanding that Amazon and other companies not play the patent game. But we all know how thoughtful most consumers are.
So, they're going to take longer to ship products to customers that are less likely to become returning customers? Isn't this oxymoron? They take a group of people that are less likely to be returning customers, and treat them worse then the regular customers. A good business practice would be to treat all your customers equal. Amazon knows what they're doing though, they don't need those filthy one-time shoppers. Really.
Now, I hate business method patents in general, but this one appears to be sufficiently arcane as to not risk much litigation. The point being that it would be extremely difficult to prove infringement by another business, given that business practices are typically kept private.
Of course somebody probably has a patent on labeling isles in stores according to what products are found, and I know somebody had to at least try to patent the mall display that provides a map and legend system to locate stores. Those patents, if they exist, would be an easier target for an infringement suit.
Have we reached such a perfect state of justice that lawyers have nothing better to do than this? Isn't there an ambulance to chase somewhere?
Even mom&pops shops have been doing it for a long time: best customers are treated better.
I just don't understand how patents can be delivered for such obvious things..
Claim prior art on this one?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
By their bosses I mean congress for gutting it and the president for ignoring it. The reasons can be interchanged and still be true, scary isn't it. Make retroactive executions as well although most of the ones that started this trend are most likely dead already. Ok, new target, lobbyists and corporate heads who wanted it broken. This is, of course, after their punishment for all the other crap thats been dumped on the rest of us. USPTO abuse is minor in comparison.
Please mark first paragragh serious and second funny, although second should still be serious.
OK i dont use amazon that often, but just think what this 'idea' will mean to 'bad' / 'occasional customers' at christmas. Potentially no gifts if you dont buy from them.
Looks like i will be becoming a client of play.com (an alternative to amazon) here in europe.
Well thats an innovatory patent, Bezo's saves the us patent system from ridicule.
... dont give them your money.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously though, I read awhile back that Best Buy was quoted as saying some customers are just not worth keeping.
Someone should read the actual patents occasionally. Granted, it's a bit hard to see why this would be patented, but everyone above has missed the point.
Start with a simple example.
You have 10 Wii consoles and 10 Wii controllers in your West coast warehouse.
You have 10 Wii controllers in your East cost warehouse.
Normally, you would fill an order for a controller for a West coast customer from the West coast warehouse.
But, if you know that customers always buy the extra Wii controller with the Wii console, you realize that filling an order for a controller from the nearest warehouse will cause you to have to make 2 shipments later when someone orders the last console and the controllers are already depleted in the warehouse where the console is.
Now, they also add a bunch of warehouse workload calculations into the mix, so there is a bit of fancy bookkeeping here.
Stupid subject for a patent.
Because they standardize poor service for all customers uniformly. Exactly the same as both wired and wireless phone companies and also all the major brand PC makers too.
Netflix has been doing this for years, commonly referred to as "throttling."
customer satisfaction.
People are putting a lot of emphisis on the customer's reaction. I dont' think this is so much a case of trying to socially engineer people as much as as simple attempt at reducing costs. From the patent, what is being claimed:
"determining a fulfillment plan specific to the order that minimizes future monetary costs of fulfilling expected future orders"
Thats what they are actually patenting. A method of reducing the cost of handling a specific order by using a prediction of future orders. They go on to talk about how to go about building the fulfillment plan. It in includes a mutltitude of factors, including cost of shipping, cost of stocking, the cost associated with running out of items at a distribution center, ect. Included in this list is the cost in customer satisfaction. From the patent:
"assigning costs to at least some of one or more reductions in customer goodwill"
They put a monetary value on how content or discontent a customer will be. They basically put together a bunch of possible fulfillment plans and choose the one which minimizes their cost. Sounds like good business to me.
This isn't a case of rewarding good customers (although that might be an inadvertent outcome... but it's probably not quite as cut and dry as that) and punishing bad ones. This is a case of allocating resources to maximize profits. All businesses do this. If a customer walks into your store, and you're pretty sure he's looking to make a big purchase, you will devote more time (read money) to pleasing him.
Businesses have been doing this for a long time, using various paper-based methods. While a specific way of doing this might be patentable, merely creating a computer version of this shouldn't be a valid patent.
For years I ddi not order from amazon because I would receive packages in a couple week where all my friends would get packages in days. It could very well have to do with the prosperity of the zip code. I now do quite a bit of business with Amazon, but it has been cut back due to the number of packages that are taking 2 and 3 days longer to deliver than they should. A retailer always should treat steady customers better than the occasional customer. But that treatment has to do with extras, like free shipping upgrades, not standard service like meeting stated delivery schedules.
Amazon obviously is doing this because they cannot meet stated guarantees for all customers. If this is the case, they should reduce those expectations, not make false claims about what they can and cannot do.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
OK, enough with the negative-veiwpoint-only here. The poster is making it sound like Amazon is trying to patent and codify a method to give bad customer service. This is misleading in the extreme (not that that's anything new in Slashdot articles). Amazon is trying to ID and reward customers who are likely to do larger amounts of business with them in the future.
You can make the argument that the corollary of such a policy is that "bad customers" get the shafted, but that's not the intent. Using that logic, any "customer loyalty program" that anyone ever introduces is shafting someone. Does that sound like a sensible argument?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I've noticed that as someone who has paid for their Amazon Prime service, if it's within the last hour or two of when they promise next day service for 1-day shipping, the free 2-day shipping I've already paid for by joining their "Prime" service will be delayed until 2 shipping days after the 1-day service is delivered. It used to be blatantly obvious by looking at the estimated delivery times on the product's page but now they'll estimate it to be one day after 1-day service but it'll almost always be delayed by another day (without any warning).
Amazon run a very tight, somewhat dishonest ship. The good news is that if you call them on it they'll throw gift certificates at you occasionally - but eventually writing angry letters gets to be annoying.
"The whole thing is absurd, not just this particular patent, but this stupid torrent of all but worthless patents that is busily burying the US's future ability to innovate.."
Care to give examples other than special cases? I think we're not only innovating fine. Historically the US is more friendly to the entrepreneur, even better than Canada.
There is already price-based optimization, where I can pay extra for expedited delivery.
I order to different yet related items yesterday. For some reason one of them was eligible for free shipping. But the default order packaging is to ship the items together and charge me $15. I have to go in, tweak the order, separate it into 2 shipments and the shipping cost goes down by half, that is one of the items is free. They both come to me from the same place. I am scratching my head on this. It can't be good for Amazon to break up the order. And it irritates me to have to muck with their order. Plus - why is only one item eligible for free shipping? Both items are very similar, the cost nearly the same, they come from the same place, and are made by the same company. I'd feel better if they just lied to me and told me that they're giving me a 50% discount on the shipping cost. Or better yet - don't tell me anything at all and wrap it up and charge me the discounted price.
"Bad Customer Service for Bad Customers"? Good lord, between working in retail and IT, I have so many cases of prior art, this patent won't last a second.
blog |
This is a patent on a system to provide tiered service.. nothing more, nothing less. However it is worded in it's summary or abstract has nothing to do with the method it implements other than to provide an example of how it COULD be used, not how it WILL be used. In fact this could be implemented to provide tiered internet service, tiered data provisioning among servers... ie: it could be used as a clustered server farm system management policy - wherein a server that is not doing so well (DOSed, traffic bound naturally or just in need of an upgraded nic card) would not be sent as many requests to handle.
To truly get an idea of how a patent WILL be used, you have to look at what problem the patent holder is trying to solve (which is probably going to be difficult to guess)... and then generalize a method to fit that problem's solution. A good way to do it is to swap out the nouns with a variety of potential objects and see what would fit. The server farm example is just one that would fit... there are many others.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Nokia N800 Tablet for Granny for Christmas anyone?
www.misco.co.uk £251.43 new
www.amazon.co.uk £191.31 new
www.play.com £149.99 new
www.amazon.com £111.33 new ( $228.99 converted using http://www.xe/ucc/ )
The crazy thing is that for something likely designed in Finland and probably made in China, I can probably get it cheaper by importing it back to the UK after it's been exported to the USA from China (even including HMRC import taxes on the www.amazon.com purchase).
First let me say I have never used Amazon although I might do at some point in the future.
I did used to use a much smaller online retailer (dabs.co.uk) quite frequently though to buy computer parts. When I first started using them they offered free delivery if you ordered online. The delivery was only 2-3 day though not next day. Most of the time this didn't bother me, of it did I always had the option to pay for the next day option.
At first when I ordered something that was out of stock so I had to wait for them to get it in I noticed they started sending it out by next day courier. After a while almost every order I placed started being sent out marked next day delivery regardless. Obviously this is not the sort of thing anyone complains about so all it did was make me even more loyal to them as a company.
The moral of this story is that this is something that every company does unofficially anyway. They treat high value clients better than low value clients. The difference here is that Amazon are applying for a patent and making it official. Maybe they want to use it as part of an advertising campaign and don't want their competitor doing the same thing.
I dont read
NO WAY!
That never worked in retail.
I ordered a gift subscription to a magazine from Amazon, took 2 months to complete. I'll never buy from them again. Which came first, their bad service or the expectation that I'll never buy from them again?
As it seems that no one has read the damned patent - here is the concise version:
This has nothing to do with Amazon deciding that Joe Smith projects to be a lousy customer so lets not care about the order he just placed.
This is all about trying to determine the most profitable way to fill orders from multiple distribution centers, using projected future orders for those centers.
Of course, it's much cooler to be a sheep and follow the herd, isn't it?
the more often i buy from amazon the "better" I am to them?
the only thing that makes me a bad customer is not buying often enough?
shouldn't this headline read Amazon patents slow service for infrequent customers?
or a slightly better title: If you don't buy tons of our shit we'll treat you like shit
seems more apropos.
Anybody who actually read that patent (obligatory of course not, this is slashdot) can see that the article has it totally wrong. First of all, Amazon -would- be stupid to patent what the article claims. It would be very bad for business, and whatever you may think of Amazon, they are extremely good at business. This patent describes a system for determining how to fulfill an order (not just in terms of when to ship, but also, where to ship from, how to ship, etc) based on a multitude of factors. These factors include future orders, but those future orders refer to the expectation of future orders for all customers. Statistics 101 (Amazon surely knows this): the future orders of one specific customer are very hard to model, but the future orders of all customers are pretty easy to model. The point is to optimize the fulfillment process for all customers. Yes, it -could- be possible for them to use these techniques to target specific customers, but I would think it much more likely that they would use this in the favor of new customers they are trying to hook, rather than older established customers. Netflix, anyone?
How can anybody here think they deserve to waste space by posting an opinion on something they haven't even taken the time to check out?
That would be nice. But the much more likely option is that they'll work out a licensing agreement. Amazon will make a ton of money, and other retailers will start screwing over certain customers with added zeal, because now "screwing over customers" will be "leveraging license agreements" or some other buzzword BS that will attract investors.
Amazon wins, the crappy retailers win with newly attracted investment, and the customer loses. Yeah, that's definitely the plan.
They're intended to protect novel (or improved, see patent law) implementations of ideas. Not ideas themselves - no matter how novel they may be.
I really like how many retailers are now taking this war on customers stance. I think a lot of companies are realizing they don't really like customers, only their money, so they are working harder to get the money with little customer involvement as possible. And those customers that do interfere with getting money are treated more as enemies.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
If it's like the one-click patent, I think they change an "a" to "the" and added an "on the Internet" somewhere to get it through re-re-reexamination.
I wish I were making that up...
What better way to piss off your customers than to do this bullshit ! How much money do they get from the occasional customer versus the customer that orders alot ? Instead of shitting up service for the occasional customer, they can offer something like free shipping if you put in a certain number orders beyond a given number in a given time period. Something like put in more han three orders per month, you have free shipping for that given month's period.
This idea, that you should take care of 'good' customers more than 'bad' customers, is lesson 0 in any selling course, taught from the very first day. So, now to get a patent, one has only to take an established idea and computerise it?
(disclaimer: I work for Amazon)
As someone who works on the team that owns the software that generates those fulfillment plans, I can tell you we do NOT do this. We know nothing about the customer aside from the address of where it's being shipped to.
What if another business already has a broader claim? Providing bad service for all customers.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think you (and most other posters) missed the point by oversimplifying it. I don't think this is a system that gives more frequent customers better treatment, and less-frequent ones worse. Here's why I think that - take a look at this:
Sample table from patent
The system allows them to prioritize delivery methods according to potential goodwill cost. Here's a simple example: Say Amazon has only two customers - you and me. We both frequently buy expensive stuff. I don't really care when it arrives, just so it arrives. You, on the other hand, complain if things arrive late. The system would allow Amazon to know that they should prioritize your shipments over mine.
Now, extend this to many, many customers with widely varying buying habits, and varying attitudes to early, on-time, and late deliveries. It's kind of cool, if you think about it. Say I buy stuff from Amazon very infrequently, but when I do, it's always *really* expensive, and I *hate* it when stuff arrives late. Then there's this other guy who buys less expensive stuff, but buys all the time, and *he* LOOOOOVES it when stuff shows up early, but doesn't much care if it's late. Then there's this chick who buys, on average, one book every month and never says anything positive if it's early, never complains if it's up to a week late, but rants and raves and swears to never buy again from Amazon when something's over a week late...
The system allows Amazon to prioritize shipment plans among their millions of customers, all with varying buying styles and delivery-time cares. They do it because it allows them to maximize their profits, which, it seems, most people on here don't like. But look at the effects - you get, not only *what* you want, but you get it within a timeframe that's acceptable to you!
That having been said, in a very simple sense, you and most others are right that it rewards "frequent customers," but in a limited way. The only way this system gives frequent customers preferential treatment is because frequent purchasers provide more information about buying habits and delivery-time cares to enable Amazon to prioritize. A more accurate statement would be: "This system will give preferential treatment to customers who spend the most money and complain the most if stuff is late and like it when stuff is early." Which makes sense.
Another thing to consider is that Amazon has a limited pool of shipping resources. This system is a method to accurately distribute those resources, but not just according to pure cost - it actually takes into consideration "goodwill cost!" For crying out loud, it takes into account your feelings!
This is an application of free-market principles to an internal resource distribution problem, and it's actually a clever solution. They increase their profit, and you get what you want. I don't see the down side to this. (Other than the patent.)
I haven't made any purchases from amazon in the last year or so.
I may not be a smart man, but I know what an inode is.
Amazon only does this because it works.
If 'the market' cared about fairness, it would do something about it. The market sucks. I wish we had a better market.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Same as their spam practice -- you're more likely to get spammed if you're a bad customer, because they have less to lose. This is why every complaint about them spamming gets met with dozens of "but I buy from them all the time and never get spam". Of course not; they have a lot to lose if they annoy you, and you're buying stuff anyway. It's the inactive people that seem to be most likely to end up getting unwanted mail. (And I know they don't hit everybody, but I know enough people getting enough spam from them to stick with the analysis.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Reminds me of Fawlty Towers. These people don't become regular long term customers because they are treated so badly....
Exactly, this means psychopathic pieces of crap who have nothing better to do than constantly complain will get improved service, while normal people will have to wait.
They already lost me when I bought a few computer books, and they apparently decided I was a millionaire, so started charging me much, much more. I think it was even above normal retail for many items. It would take a lot to ever convince me to ever shop with the bastards at Amazon again. They just seem to have the mindset to screw over everyone and get away with as much as they can. What kind of sane person would want to deal with that?
It seems to me that there's LOTS of prior art out there!
...show the ignorance of the Patent office for what is simply determining how to keep labor costs down by better regulating warehouse employee count, work hours and overtime.
This is not uncommon and has been in practice since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
What they are claiming is a computer based system that tells the customer when they might expect delivery based not on expected order from that customer but of expected order of their whole business and the work load of its employees.
This patent is not of matter that is novel, the problem has been dealt with in many different ways. This is a solution direction that anyone in the field of such need, knowing computers, would come up with.
In the UK such a patent application would be dismissed on the grounds of being a business method and more importantly incorporating computers to perform what would otherwise be human mental tasks.
Other ways of dealing with this warehouse labor issue is that of using standing orders and off overload discounts.
I've been with a company for many years that I have a standing backup order with. If I forget to order each month then a backup order will be shipped, and usually of things they know I'll use as a matter of history and usually of less cost to me than my typical order. But if I place an order early in the month, vs. late where more are ordering instead of getting their backup order, I get additional benefits I can later use to get free products (except for shipping costs). This works because it helps the company determine and better control the needed labor force in both order taking and distribution. It helps them control costs.
That is all that this patent of amazon is dealing with. But Amazon being an online order business that it is, it doesn't have, nor would it work, a backup or standing order system that only consumable products can work in that way. Using history and extrapolating projected sales is however common practice in many businesses. In fact Black Friday and Xmas sales is used to indicate failure of success for the rest of the year for a lot of consumer business.
What has Amazon done but automate what we have been doing for a long time. Just because this calculator called a computer hasn't been around as long should not (in the UK it certainly doesn't) be grounds to grant a patent on something we were doing by hand/mind before computer came along.
is make it so that people who are regular long-term customers will become proxy buyers.
Think about it: If my brother regularly buys things but I don't have the nice high payroll job that he does to be able to afford to have crap shipped to me all the time, then am I more or less likely to have him buy something for me than opening up my own account just so I can get it delivered sooner? Yes, I do believe that I would go with the faster shipping option.
What if they knew what they were doing?
There was at least one other discussion here about some company patenting a Bad Practice. (Who thinks of patenting bad practices? - So, it was available)
Wasn't the discussion about using a Negative Patent to stop bully actions by competitors?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I read some of the patent and I didn't see it anywhere that their fulfillment method would be tied to a customer. Instead of using your order history to choose how fast to ship, they're using everyone's order history to decide how fast to ship certain items. You know how each page has items at the bottom that say "other people who bought this also bought..."? They're using that information that they've been gathering for a long time to decide what it means when you buy x. I'm almost positive that this is not only a tool to keep their most profitable customers. It has to also be about that first order and what it means in terms of future orders. It's like upsell with delayed gratification. The fact of who is ordering is probably less important than most people here are thinking.
Or did I read it wrong? Is there a section of the patent that refutes this?
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Now think of the poor guys who work for them, they'll have notes on every single item telling them how much time they have to put them in a box:
-"you have 5 minutes to get this part in the box"
-"you have 3 days to put his one in a box"
-"it's supposed to be in the box already!!!"
-"take your time dude, we'll send this guy's package next year.... around the time he'll order stuff from us again"
Or would it be worse for their superiors?
-"hey don't push me boss, this package is for tomorrow"
-"can't talk to you boss, this leaves in 2 minutes!"
-"i'm not on a break, i'm following the instructions in putting this package together!"
"Checkout Clerk to Register for Customer Service."
AKA adjust volatile peak staffing.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
There's a lot of prior art in the bad customer service area. Need I say more?
On a serious note, I wish Amazon would stop with the lame patents. It makes it harder and harder to buy from them.
Sorry I cannot prove this. But I can testify before a court if needed. In the mid 1970's I managed a pizza place. We had a $2 buffet for all the pizza and drinks you could eat. This on one evening during a slow business period. This event generated largish customer crowds of 60-70 customers at once. Well one stinker of a customer shows up in line wanting half something really picky and the other half something else picky.
I told this customer that he would have to wait maybe 45 minutes for his picky order. Stinker put up a stink. So I said to him then pay your two bucks and eat the buffet.
Anyhow he was embarrassed when everyone in line cheered at my impudent handling of Mr. Stinky Customer.
So Amazon's patent bites the dust. This sort of practice is probably quite common in the food service industry. If you yourself have run Mr. Stinky Customer to the back of the line, let us know.
Hope your Thanksgiving weekend is going well,
Jim
I was thinking about patenting stupidity, but it turns out the patent office contains prior art, and they didn't even have to do a literature search.
Before, if my Amazon order was late, I'd just chalk it up to bad luck or whatever. Now I'll assume that it's Amazon being a bunch of fuckers...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I used to work in supply chain at Amazon, thank god I don't anymore.
But simply put, if you have an 'arrives on' date of the 24th or sooner then you will get it on the 24th. If they have to upgrade you from super saver to next day air, then so be it.
Of course due to reasons beyond Amazon's control (eg: vendors didn't deliver) some people don't get what they ordered. In which case we email them on the 23rd after we're certain it's not going (or sooner if possible) and let you know that you won't get it.
I will order my gifts from Amazon this year as much as possible. Beats the hell out of going to a mall. And I have absolute confidence in the supply chain. Plus I have Amazon Prime to second day shipping is free for me.
here is from the patent application (that talks about fulfillment, not customer service or increasing order arrival time) "to enhance the future fulfillment process for expected future orders, such as to minimize the costs that will be associated with fulfilling those future orders." Some countries deliver on bicycles. Some countries may impose monetary fines on each delivery if they are late or if the deliverer "argues" in with the customer...think about it. Why all the /. negative replies here? I'm not getting it.
I think that Amazon is forgetting rule #3. I see no sign of this being useful. Patentry disqualified!
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
I quit Netflix back in 2003 because of that.
In the first few months I would get almost a movie a day, usually a 3-4 days 'roll' on a movie. Then it started to slow down, up to a week a movie. I had to be carefully if I wanted a movie for the week-end, like make sure a movie was sent back at least the previous Friday, keep it if I receive it early. Watching 3 movies in the week often meant no movies for the week-end.
I started to just dislike Netflix.
Then I read an interview with the founder (CTO/CEO?), he was very proud of his system, how subscribers who rented only a movie or two every month would get very fast service, and receiving the top queued choice, usually a new release. Big watchers like me cost them a lot more money, so they purpuselly deleyed shipping, in case they can send the new release to a 'better' customer, or to let that 'old movie' be back to send it to me.
I canceled my subscription the very next day.
Today the service looks good again, since I rip all my movies to watch them when I feel like it. Always fun to see the teen at the vidoe store when I return 3 movies an hour later!
I agree on your reading, the summary of the original link was either done by someone who didn't understand the technology or was making a lame attempt at humor.