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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."
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.
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.