Amazon: We Can Ship Items Before Customers Order

An anonymous reader writes "The WSJ is reporting that Amazon has obtained a patent for 'anticipatory shipping,'' and claims it knows its customers so well it can start shipping even before orders are placed. The technique could cut delivery time and discourage consumers from visiting physical stores. In the patent document, Amazon says delays between ordering and receiving purchases 'may dissuade customers from buying items from online merchants.' Of course, Amazon's algorithms might sometimes err, prompting costly returns. To minimize those costs, Amazon said it might consider giving customers discounts, or convert the unwanted delivery into a gift. 'Delivering the package to the given customer as a promotional gift may be used to build goodwill,' the patent said. Considering the problems that can arise when shipping something a customer did not order anticipatory shipping has the potential to backfire faster than an Amazon drone can deliver."

Comments

Will they also bill me?

[Sven-Erik]

Well, as long as they will not bill me before I have ordered I have no problems with this...

Re:Will they also bill me?

[dhanson865]

Nope they won't charge you, the article says the items are held at a local level waiting for a matching order to show up before it knows where/who to deliver to so the billing process isn't predictive, just the inventory/distribution/shipping is.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[girlintraining]

Nope they won't charge you, the article says the items are held at a local level waiting for a matching order to show up before it knows where/who to deliver to so the billing process isn't predictive, just the inventory/distribution/shipping is.

Yes, to the surprise of nobody, another badly written headline is a terrible summary. All distribution chains do this already -- What Amazon has patented is a particular set of data mining methods in the hope that it will result in a slight increase in efficiency in this process.

Of course, to anyone who's studied caching problems in CSci... this patent would be almost painfully obvious. It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the 80286 days. But when you're a large company in America, the rules don't really apply to you.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anne_Nonymous]

So lets put some bulky, heavy things in our shopping carts and on our wish lists and really mess with Bezos for a few weeks.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[nurb432]

They cant legally bill you for something you did not order.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious as long as you don't worry about warehouse and inventory issues.

I think no one has pushed for it, because it could turn into a logistics nightmare. At least computers will generate less errors than a human version of this.

Maybe this is a sign that software may start to make up the more than a decade it fell behind hardware.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Sven-Erik]

Yes, I know they can't bill me, I was just making a silly joke... ;-)

Re:Will they also bill me?

[vikingpower]

someone mod parent up "funny"

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not yet anyway. I am sure they (Amazon) are crafting legislation to this effect as I write this. Don't think for a second that business is not writing the Laws at this point in time.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[schlachter]

It's pretty different from a standard caching operation.

It's more like a massively parallel distributed caching operation where the act of caching something removes it from the original data source until it is uncached, and where latency is at least a day or two and cost is very high.

The real innovation is knowing what to cache with enough confidence to act on it...with a granularity of a single customer.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the 80286 days. But when you're a large company in America, the rules don't really apply to you.

But the patent doesn't contain the words "on a computer" therefore it's new!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[temcat]

It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the 80286 days.

Refreshingly, at this time, the novelty will be in the fact that it is NOT on the computer!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[ShanghaiBill]

...with a granularity of a single customer.

They don't need granularity to a single customer. If Amazon can find 100 people in a city that have a 50% chance of ordering a product, then they can pre-ship 50 to that city's local distribution center. Then when approx. half of them actually place their orders, most of them will get it quickly, even though Amazon didn't know precisely which people would actually order. This will work better with more popular items, where the hits and misses are more likely to even out.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[girlintraining]

It's pretty different from a standard caching operation.

Okay... and your argument for this is...

It's more like a massively parallel distributed caching operation where the act of caching something removes it from the original data source until it is uncached, and where latency is at least a day or two and cost is very high.

So it's the same predictive logic used for caching, except it takes longer, and it has a queue hung on the side. I don't call that "pretty different" from a structural standpoint. "Pretty different" for me would be the difference between a predictive caching algorithm and, say, TCP/IP flow control algorithms, which also try to be predictive, but have very different constraints.

Either way, this is neither an unusual, innovative, or in any way exceptional application of decades-old algorithms and information processing engineering. It should not be patentable, and that was my point... not quibbling over whether it's "slightly" different or "pretty" different... to qualify for a patent, it must be truly groundbreaking, not merely taking existing formulas and process and adapting it.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[TheGavster]

There is still room for novelty in solving a traditional, well-explored CS problem in the physical space, largely because the cost of operations is different. In a computer, quicksort is the accepted way to sort data without foreknowledge of how it is mixed. Sorting railcars using quicksort would be a terrible idea because you can't swap arbitrary cars in constant time (https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=369&y=0&no=&content=true&page=5&css=print). In this case, Amazon may well have developed a novel caching scheme that is efficient in the space of their distribution network, which likely has a different topography than the memory of a 286.

Re: Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there is a law on the books . If anyone sends you anything that you did not order. It's yours free of charge. They are not allowed to even ask for you to send it back.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the 80286 had a cache now? I don't think so.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[davester666]

"...over the internets" is all the innovation we need.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Amazon has already been doing this a little. One time they sent me a printer cartridge and some baby wipes that I never ordered. I asked them what I should do with them and they said to just keep it. The baby wipes actually had sunscreen so I used them on myself while cycling last summer, and the printer ink I gave to staples for a $80 store credit, which I then used to get a free soda stream. It was actually pretty great!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Bing Tsher E]

Many 80286 motherboards had cache ram on them.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[jtownatpunk.net]

Is that why that creepy van's been parked at the end of my driveway for a week?

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Bing Tsher E]

There is a long legal history of companies not being allowed to send unsolicited merchandise that you much return if you don't want to pay for it. Collectable stamp companies used to do this. They will still let subscribers be part of their 'approval' programs, where collectable stamps are sent out periodically, but the customers need to be in a formal agreement with them.

Prior to the new laws, companies would put ads in pulp magazines like 'buy this big bunch of foreign stamps for only ten cents!' and once they had your address they'd start sending you bunches of stamps unsolicited and then bill you if you didn't send them back.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[db10]

Then that's nothing new, that's JIT inventory forcasting.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[jd2112]

But when you're a large company in America, the rules don't really apply to you.

Sure they do, Just a different set of rules.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[russotto]

Refreshingly, at this time, the novelty will be in the fact that it is NOT on the computer!

Indeed. On that note, I've just submitted a patent application for a method for scheduling elevator cars in a multi-elevator building. It's based on well-known hard disk array head scheduling algorithms.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[ShanghaiBill]

Then that's nothing new, that's JIT inventory forcasting.

Except that there is no inventory. When the predicted shipments arrive at the distribution center, they are immediately either sent out to the customers or returned to the originating warehouse.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[dukeblue219]

He asked Amazon what to do, and they said keep it. What the hell are you talking about?

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you even don't have to send it back. At least in Germany, where they changed the laws after a couple of sketchy companies send unrequested goods and tried to bully the recipients into paying for them.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[db10]

If that's the case, that's extremely inefficient.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a cultural racist. And so are you, even though you may deny it.

What is a cultural racist? Is it a KKK member who enjoys fine art? That would be a cultured racist. Would it be somebody most comfortable with his own culture, and others like it? No, because race doesn't play a part in that equation. (a cultural centrist, sometimes called ethnocentrist, which is confusing because people lump race and ethnicity together, and ethnicity implies physical boundaries or nationality, which cultural centrism doesn't require.)

The closest I can interpolate from that term is someone who trys to determine other's culture from their race. This isn't a good thing, but in some places it's an easy habit to acquire. In other places, the idea doesn't even make sense. (either because there is insufficient diversity of culture, so all races are the same, or because the cultural divide does not fall on racial lines.)

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, to anyone who's studied caching problems in CSci... this patent would be almost painfully obvious. It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the 80286 days.

Put that 60's IBM systems and the problem of prefeching.

Re: Will they also bill me?

[LocalH]

Probably the fact that the OP took the ink they recieved from Amazon and returned it to Staples, where it didn't come from.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Bearhouse]

Well put, as usual.
BTW, nice to see you back...had not seen you posting for a while.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[westlake]

So lets put some bulky, heavy things in our shopping carts and on our wish lists and really mess with Bezos for a few weeks.

The joke comes across all the better after you've around Slashdot long enough to haven seen worse ideas taken up seriously.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way, this is neither an unusual, innovative, or in any way exceptional

Yet no one is doing it. It's "obvious", but not so obvious that anyone has been able to make it work.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[nospam007]

"Yes, to the surprise of nobody, another badly written headline is a terrible summary. All distribution chains do this already"

Even my local bar gets all sorts of booze delivered before I even order a single drink.
They keep even more of it in a special location in the backroom.

Re: Will they also bill me?

[retchdog]

walmart takes arbitrary 'returns' as long as it's an item they stock. maybe staples does the same?

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they're predicting what their customers will buy and storing those items in a location close to those customers, so they can sell those items to those nearby customers? I'm pretty sure when you remove the "on the internet", that's called running a retail store.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[ShanghaiBill]

If that's the case, that's extremely inefficient.

Not necessarily. If they predict 50 orders, and ship 50, then there is a good chance they might have a return. But if they predict 50, they may be able to further predict with 95% certainty that there will be at least 45 orders, and with 99% certainty that there will be at least 40 orders. Then they might ship only 40 so there is only a 1% chance of a return.

Amazon currently has a "hub-and-spoke" model, where packages go from the warehouse to each distribution center. But they are moving toward a more networked system that will include transfers directly between distribution centers. So if too many packages go to one DC, they can be put on a truck and taken to another DC in the next town that got too few.

Amazon is also expanding local warehousing, with a plan to go into delivering groceries. So they should soon be able to cache more goods locally.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Bite The Pillow]

Did you read the article at all? Because no you didn't. Here's just a bit that makes this different from what you describe, apart from all of the other things that make it different. In particular, you never have a bit somewhere that is advertised to be available in the future and have devices anticipate it, in remotely the same way as release day music, books, or movies:

Amazon said the predictive shipping method might work particularly well for a popular book or other items that customers want on the day they are released. As well, Amazon might suggest items already in transit to customers using its website to ensure they are delivered, according to the patent.

We know you don't like patents. But please have a point to argue next time. Would an on die cache tell the CPU it fetched some predictive instructions that it doesn't need but might like?

Oh I can't wait for the ridiculous twisting of logic that has nothing to do with your original reply or the article but manages to find a word out of place that you can google the shit out of to make it sound like I'm wrong.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking a couple of 4k 80" TVs in my cart would do. :)

Re:Will they also bill me?

[mendax]

If a retailer sends you something you didn't order, by law it's yours. Simple as that.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Megahard]

How about this guy?

http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Design-Lighting-System-Freezers/dp/B008BC50CC/ref=sr_1_1?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Shipping weight is over a ton, shipping is free(!) but it cannot be gift-wrapped.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[temcat]

This is not racism in the most literal sense (pertaining to race as such), just the belief that some cultures are inferior, just as ethnic racism is the belief that some ethnic groups are inferior.

I assert that this is the only valid and rational part in any racism, be it ethnic, racial or otherwise (because we cannot meaningfully define, say, ethnicity or race where it concerns behavior without relying on culture).

This is related to impossibility of multiculturalism, or if you want, the inherent limits of its extent.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[m.alessandrini]

They cant legally bill you for something you did not order.

Just wait for the next patent!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then that's nothing new, that's JIT inventory forcasting.

Except that there is no inventory. When the predicted shipments arrive at the distribution center, they are immediately either sent out to the customers or returned to the originating warehouse.

Which isn't really all that new of an idea. Brick and mortar stores are exactly the same thing; you predict what people will show up to buy then pre-order it so it's in stock. A warehouse is just an extra link in the distribution chain, it does the same thing in regards to orders from stores... and in many cases stores these days will have stock direct-shipped. They have a 'hold time' on the stock before it's shipped back, discounted, destroyed, or given away. There still exists a hold time with this 'new' setup, nothing is "immediate". You have to ship both ways, sort and process. You're just saving some brick and mortar storage by keeping it on a truck or the loading dock.

This isn't really all that new, but it's more of a patent on how they are specifically predicting the purchases than the idea itself.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

to qualify for a patent, it must be truly groundbreaking, not merely taking existing formulas and process and adapting it.

No, it just needs to show a significant difference, it doesn't need to be groundbreaking. But it does need to be clever enough to not be obvious.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

me either!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[m.alessandrini]

And then, re-sell them on Amazon as used items!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[N1AK]

It's only inefficient if you don't consider the bigger picture or screw up the implementation. Amazon wants to make shops irrelevant and part of that, as they see it, is getting product to customers as fast or faster than they could get it from shops. If they have a local courier depot serving a city and can say with 99% confidence that they will order 50 or more copies of a new book on Monday then they can send the books to the city depot before the orders come in with a high confidence that the orders will come and they can be split off into delivery vehicles and delivered same day. The negligible number of returns is a small price to pay to be able to offer a same day delivery service while using far fewer priority delivery vehicles to provide it.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[m.alessandrini]

3. Profit!

Re:Will they also bill me?

[N1AK]

We know you don't like patents. But please have a point to argue next time. Would an on die cache tell the CPU it fetched some predictive instructions that it doesn't need but might like?

Don't some browsers pre-fetch pages they think you are likely to visit? Don't some operating systems load programs into RAM before you ask for them to decrease loading times?

I know they aren't the same mechanism that he was suggesting but at the same time I'm not really sure how this is innovative. Hell some speciality shops will order things because they know a certain customer is bound to want it and may mail them to let them know. The innovation is in how you implement this in a large supply chain and how you accurately predict purchase decisions; which are both analytical/mathematical questions and shouldn't imo be covered by patents.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[locofungus]

I think it sounds quite clever.

Typically delivery consists of shipping to a distribution centre and then shipping to the customer.

Anyone who's had a tracked delivery will know that "Arrived at distribution depot" "Out for delivery" steps.

What I think is being suggested here is that you start the shipping process before you know the final destination.

Presumably the distribution depot isn't going to store the parcels (over and above the storage they have to do while waiting to load it onto the van for local delivery)

But here I think you only attach the destination to the parcel when it arrives at the distribution depot. If you have a customer at that point then you attach the customer's address otherwise you put the originating address on the parcel and ship it back.

Get it wrong and it could get very expensive. Get it right and many customers could see very quick delivery of large items that normally would take 2-3 days minimum even for a premium delivery service.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[geminidomino]

So "racism" that has nothing to do with race? And people wonder why their pet issues aren't taken seriously...

Re:Will they also bill me?

[temcat]

Yep, in the modern usage, "racism" has become an umbrella term. I agree it's not the optimal situation. The provocative sig is partly about that.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[tibit]

This is very informative, you only forgot the most important keyword: It's called prefetch. When something has its own word to describe it, we know it's really a common thing.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[tibit]

Would an on die cache tell the CPU it fetched some predictive instructions that it doesn't need but might like?

Seriously? In a word: YES! CPUs have been doing predictive prefetch for quite a while. Speculative execution is a generalization of this: the prefetched stuff is not inputs to the computation, but outputs of it. Also widely implemented.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[tibit]

Even the original 8086 had an instruction cache (called a prefetch buffer IIRC). Most contemporary cache-less pipelined micro controllers also do an equivalent of prefetch.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[tibit]

How insensitively cloddish of them. My wife would love that thing in a gift wrap!

Re: Will they also bill me?

[tibit]

Because, obviously, Staples special-orders print cartridges with an extra sprinkling of magic pixie dust in the ink. When you return the ones without pixie dust in them, you obviously defraud Staples. Makes sense to me, duh.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Dusthead Jr.]

The the question one must ask then is what cultures you find inferior, and what do you mean by inferior? The problem with this line of thinking is that it's hypocrical at it's core. If one considers a culture inferior that tends to imply that theirs is superior. Who decides that theirs is suprior? If someone claims that your superior culture is inferior do you gladly accept that or do uou call bullshit on it? If history is any indication your answer is irrelavent.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[SleazyRidr]

That's disappointing. I was looking forward to random stuff showing up at my door from Amazon.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

...was this filed on 4/1/20XX by any chance? Or I wonder if they were just having fun w/the USPTO...

Re:Will they also bill me?

[TechyImmigrant]

>It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the 80286 days

It's the same thing we've been doing in computers since, erm... the Manchester MU5 days.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[TechyImmigrant]

>called a prefetch buffer IIRC

Ah, but this is a pre-push buffer.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So in what way is this any different than McDonalds noticing trends and building sandwiches before they are ordered?

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone throw one of these in your cart: http://www.amazon.com/Laguna-Signature-Series-Widebelt-Sander/dp/B002UU7ZNS/ref=sr_1_1?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1390238980&sr=1-1&keywords=belt+sander

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or rather, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Powermatic-1790843-WB-43-43-Inch-Variable/dp/B001BSK0E6/ref=sr_1_4?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1390239122&sr=1-4&keywords=belt+sander

Re:Will they also bill me?

[girlintraining]

Did you read the article at all? Because no you didn't.

Circular logic works because circular logic works because...

I'm just going to stop reading the rest of your post now... because if your opening lines are a combination of fail logic and being a condescending prick, the rest is probably even worse (looks down) Much. Worse.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kettle. Pot. Black.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[temcat]

A culture implies a set of ethical and aesthetic values. Two cultures with opposite values are inferior from the POV of each other (there can't be any objective answer to that), just as within one culture a person is deemed inferior to the extent he/she is inclined to violate the ethical and/or aesthetic code of that culture. Not all cultural differences are seen as relevant from within the different cultures, and this is the extent to which multiculturalism can sustainably exist.

The actual hypocrisy would be to claim that a culture with values substantially contrary to yours is equal to your own culture. By this you basically assert that you don't share your own values.

Examples of cultures that I find inferior would be cultures where slavery, female genital mutilation, or shitting on the streets is practiced. The first two examples are inferior ethically, the last is inferior aesthetically.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent's post is entirely moot anyway. A patent doesn't have to be groundbreaking. Patents are about applications, not about inventions. Applying an algorithm to a field in which it was never used before is exactly the sort of thing that patents cover, and are supposed to cover. Parent is just venting opinion with no basis in actual reality.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Dusthead Jr.]

The practices you describe are things are thing that most civilized people can dislike regardless of weither or not its attached to a culture. All that means is that you are intolarent of certain behaviors and practices. If you find people who do the same thing in your own culture it doesn't make you a hypocrite for disliking that, too. I think that your term "cultural racist" as you discribe it could be just explained as intolarent of immoral acts. In that case, yes, most people are cultural "racists", but most folks won't deny it.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[shutdown -p now]

I think that your term "cultural racist" as you discribe it could be just explained as intolarent of immoral acts.

Morality is not universal - it's also a part of one's culture. In many cultures, what GP dislikes is perfectly moral - in fact, desirable.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Dusthead Jr.]

But is it really relevant what one culture considers moral, particularly if you deem the whole culture inferior, as opposed to just parts of it.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[shutdown -p now]

If the culture considers moral something that you consider immoral (such as female genital mutilation), then yes, it is quite relevant - because you are effectively considering that culture immoral. You can't exactly pick and choose things here - moral values are a core part of any culture, and they are not independent from the rest of it, but rather formed by it. You can't cut it into pieces and say that this is good and that is bad - the pieces don't exist on their own, but only as a coherent whole.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Dusthead Jr.]

(Mind you, I'm not a history buff so I might be dead wrong on the whole issue. I'm bored and I like this tangent.) But isn't that what we do anyway. Pick and choose parts of other cultures that we find appealing and assemilate them into our own. And we ignore the stuff we don't agree with. Isn't that the whole "melting pot" idea? Even cultures that, by OP's definition, we find inferior. Some of the things that are at the core of our culture came from cultures that would be "inferior". I know I keep bringing that word back, I didn't chose it, but it implies a value judgement of worthlessness, something to be ignored. Do we ignore a whole culture because we find part undesirable? History disagrees.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[shutdown -p now]

We pick and choose the largely decorative parts, like food or dress or language. We don't really pick and choose value systems from other cultures, and any immigrant who finds it unable to transition from his own value system to that of the destination culture is not going to be able to integrate properly, and will be treated as pariah. In some cases, it may be possible to find some middle ground - i.e. two value systems can have points on which they disagree, points on which they agree, and points which are only of importance to one culture but not the other. The first category cannot be mix and match, but the last one can be retained without a conflict.

It is, naturally, a value judgement. But saying that the culture as a whole is inferior neither implies that it is worthless ("A is cheaper than B" doesn't mean "A is worthless"), nor does it mean that some specific parts are not useful. But it will inevitably be the parts that are not in the core of that culture, because you can't really decouple the core. If you take it apart and remove some of the pieces, the remaining ones will often not even come back together as a coherent thing, and when they do, it's usually not sustainable. For example, you can't say that it's nice that some Asian cultures are very communal (helpful neighbors, people pulling along together etc), but you wish they didn't discourage diversity in their ranks - because both of those are stemming from the same fundamental value proposition, that of collective being more important than individual. So you have to take either both or none - and if you take both, then this clashes with the core tenet of the Western culture, which is the direct opposite - and they are not reconcilable.

As any other value judgement, it is, of course, subjective. As a member of individualist culture, I consider collectivist ones inferior. Their members, in turn, consider my culture inferior. There is no "right answer" here in general, but one can choose to act in accordance with his answer.

Re:Will they also bill me?

[Anonymous Coward]

but it cannot be gift-wrapped.

Damn!

Now that I know this

[mrmeval]

I can forgo ordering from them and keep what they send me for free.

It's the law. :)

Sooo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically I just need to understand their pattern of deliveries and make them believe I want things at a certain rate and then they'll automatically give me discounts and gifts just by refusing that I really want the item once in a while?

I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[michelcolman]

I have determined in advance that the future posts by Anonymous Coward will be rubbish.

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[Anonymous Coward]

Dickbutt.

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet anonymity and privacy is a fundamental right that Slashdotters must fight for, lest we lose it in to rapacious government officials and businessmen.

Except on Slashdot, where we like to bully people for posting anonymously.

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[michelcolman]

Incredible, it turns out my algorithm actually works!

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that you mention that. The reality is that it's often best to browse all comments here, including ones by Anonymous Coward that haven't been modded up, or even those that have been modded down. Almost all of the best comments I've ever read here (that is, those worthy of bookmarking or even printing out for later reference) have been posted by Anonymous Coward. Sure, there are some particularly shitty comments from Anonymous Coward, but they're more than offset by the extremely good comments. It's rare to see the same level of insight from posts from "non-anonymous" users, perhaps because they're more concerned with maintaining a "reputation" than engaging in meaningful, and often controversial, discussion.

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we know that "Michel Colman" is your real name? How are we to know that you're not using a realistic-sounding pseudonym of some sort here, in effect posting anonymously? Are you able to provide any proof of your identity?

Re:I disagree with what Anonymous Coward will post

[Bing Tsher E]

Everybody who posts from a logged-in account, with a very few exceptions, is just as anonymous to their peers here as anyone who posts as Anonymous Coward.

Cool.. Free stuff!

[nurb432]

Yes, please start shipping me items i did not request.. I like free stuff coming to my house.

Re:Cool.. Free stuff!

[HiThere]

Just think of all the free mail and e-mail you get without ever asking for it. More! Calling it junk mail and spam is just being abusively hurtful.

Re:Cool.. Free stuff!

[marcello_dl]

It's all fun and games until they ship you the lingerie you were checking out one late night and it is a different size than your wife's.

Re:Cool.. Free stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all fun and games until they ship you the lingerie you were checking out one late night and it is a different size than your wife's.

Nah, if your wife or girlfriend finds underwear of the wrong size in a situation like that you can always save the day by saying that you bought it because you're counting on her weight loss program to be successful.

Re:Cool.. Free stuff!

[GlowingCat]

Shipped before order ? Its called Spam.

Someone should...

[Ol Olsoc]

Tell Amazon that while smoking weed might be great, but that the ideas you get while baked aren't often that good.

Dood! Like wouldn't it be like awesome if we could like invent this like really cool time machine and like go to the future to see like what people have bought, and then like go back to when these people like sat down at their computers to think about buying something, and like it shows up right then! They'll like think its like magic!

Dood! that's frikken awesome! Now where's my goddamn Fritos!

Re:Someone should...

[Wookie Monster]

Here's how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA_gwzx39LQ

Let's say JK Rowling writes a new book

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of her loyal readers will buy it, with 100 percent probability. But maybe they've already picked up a copy from B&N or somewhere else?

And that's the best case. Just because someone has bought a bunch of Beyonce CD's let's say, doesn't mean they're guaranteed to want to buy the new one.

I just don't see it.

Re:Let's say JK Rowling writes a new book

[sunderland56]

What Amazon needs is a way of saying "any new JK Rowling book that comes out, please send it to me". That way it is the customer's choice, and you get what you're really interested in, not what some algorithm predicts you might like.

Alternately, if they sent email saying "Hey, we see you've ordered JK Rowling books in the past; did you know there's a new one coming soon? Click here to preorder", theyd' get a lot of extra sales. You'd see the email weeks before you saw the book in B&N, so you'd be more likely to buy from Amazon (especially since it would be a lot cheaper).

Re:Let's say JK Rowling writes a new book

[N1AK]

Alternately, if they sent email saying "Hey, we see you've ordered JK Rowling books in the past; did you know there's a new one coming soon? Click here to preorder", theyd' get a lot of extra sales.

Welcome to the year 2014, a wondrous place, where Amazon have been doing that and untold other things like it for around a decade.

If you're going to dismiss an idea then it might reflect better on you if you do even a modicum of research on it before hand.

Re:Let's say JK Rowling writes a new book

[sunderland56]

[citation needed]

As an Amazon customer who has purchased every JK Rowling book, but never received such an email, if they have such an algorithm then it has a bug.

Where, what law?

[Anonymous Coward]

People say that, but they never cite anything.

Re:Where, what law?

[Anonymous Coward]

People say that, but they never cite anything.

39 U.S.C. Section 3009

Or, an explanation in layman's terms by the USPS.

Re: Where, what law?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009

Google is your friend

Re:Where, what law?

[taustin]

Is The FTC a credible enough source for you?

Q. Am I obligated to return or pay for merchandise I never ordered?

A. No. If you receive merchandise that you didn’t order, you have a legal right to keep it as a free gift.

Re:Where, what law?

[dbraden]

Interesting, I was unaware of that. Furthermore, unless they re-label the delivery as a gift, it's actually illegal for them to send it unsolicited. From the link you provided (emphasis mine):

You, the consumer, may only legally be sent two types of merchandise through the mail without your consent or agreement:

        Free samples which are clearly and conspicuously marked as such.

        Merchandise mailed by a charitable organization that is soliciting contributions.

And in these two cases, you can consider the merchandise a gift if you wish. In all other situations, it is illegal to send merchandise to someone, unless that person has previously ordered or requested it.

Re:Where, what law?

[dbraden]

err, I meant to say "re-label it as a free sample...

Re:Where, what law?

[dryeo]

Finally, an example of a law that will be repealed therefore proving those people who claim laws never get repealed wrong.

Re:Where, what law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the cite.... but does this apply to things sent UPS/FedEx as well? I assume it does, but lawyers.

Re:Where, what law?

[lgw]

Only applies to the US mail, which Amazon rarely uses. Also, that didn't stop my book club from refusing to honor returns when they had a software bug where they'd send you every book you declined if you were using paypal (a bug which they've never fixed AFAIK).

Re:Where, what law?

[lgw]

Pretty sure those laws relate only to the USPS.

Re:Where, what law?

[m.alessandrini]

Common sense, first of all? A law cannot force me to do something I did not ask. Maybe they should be charged for the waste of my time.

Re:Where, what law?

[Firethorn]

Pretty sure those laws relate only to the USPS.

Incorrect. It doesn't matter whether it's USPS, UPS, Fedex, drop-shipper or deliveryman setting milk bottles outside your door. You cannot create an unsolicited debt merely by sending somebody merchandise, even if it's 'Return if unsatisfied!'. The problem was apparently bad enough in history that even free return shipping isn't excuse enough.

There's a reason it's on the FTC page and not the USPS one...

I'll note one thing: 'Unsolicited Merchandise' is NOT a company making a mistake when they ship you the wrong item after you order from them. It's also not the delivery company delivering to the wrong address.

Gift?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well i WAS thinking about buying that diamond encrusted solid gold buttplug...

But i decided not to... And now its here!

Yay?

Re: Gift?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think diamond encrusting and butt plugs would go together very well. Just saying...

Re: Gift?

[HiThere]

I think that was a part of his point.

Re: Gift?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd probably be fine. Just because diamonds are hard doesn't necessarily mean they're sharp. They're very good at cutting other hard objects, but don't do much to soft material.

Re: Gift?

[tibit]

Yes - that's why oscillating bone saws work!

Where did they get that idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA_gwzx39LQ

Hardly New

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to the patent, the packages could wait at the shippers’ hubs or on trucks until an order arrives."

This is no different than an old fashion retailer stocking the shelves with things he thinks customers will buy.

Didn't McDonalds do this first?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I seem to recall McDonalds started doing this 20 or 30 years a go, although obviously not to the level of analyzing the orders of individual customers. But basically they studied patterns of how much of each menu item is ordered, parsed by location and time of day, so that when you walk in the Filet o' Fish you're about to order is already cooking.

Other fast food vendors have since followed suit, as have big box retailers.

It's basically a specific application of "just in time" inventory practices that's being adapted to Amazon's business model. Definitely smart, but I'm not sure it should be patentable.

Re:Didn't McDonalds do this first?

[pipedwho]

Definitely smart, but I'm not sure it should be patentable.

I'd go as far as saying it should definitely not be patentable. This is the most obvious embodiment of a typical just-in-time manual practice "on a computer".

Any patent awarded should err on the side of invalid until proven valid, not the other way around. Just like proving guilt is required before someone can be deprived of freedom, so should a patent be held to the same standard before it can be used to deprive others of freedom to pedal their wares.

Re:Didn't McDonalds do this first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but this involves 'The Internet' so it is entirely different.

Re:Didn't McDonalds do this first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any patent awarded should err on the side of invalid until proven valid, not the other way around

So you seem to be saying that we should issue invalid patents rather than valid ones? Done!

Oh, and unless you are selling bicycles you peddle your wares, not pedal them.

every brick & mortar store in existence

[bob_jenkins]

Every brick & mortar store in existence stocks its shelves with items they hope people in the local area will buy, before the people buy them. You can patent that?

Re:every brick & mortar store in existence

[AmiMoJo]

The difference here is that there is no need to keep stock at the delivery centre. When it arrives if it hasn't been bought by someone so it can be immediately delivered to them it goes back to the central warehouse.

It makes sense because the delivery trucks going to the local distribution centres are full on the outbound journey and probably more than half empty coming back. That space can be used at little extra cost.

Instant cassettes!

[Zarhan]

Out in stores before the movie is finished!

Re:Instant cassettes!

[nitehawk214]

Out in stores before the movie is finished!

Spaceballs: The Movie

I'll Bet That Amazon Can Make It Work

[rueger]

On a regular basis I hear from people exhorting me to abandon Amazon.com and only buy books at my local bricks and mortar retailer.

Although quaint, the truth of the matter is that my local bookstore a) doesn't have what I want, when I want it. b) may or may not be able to order it reasonably quickly and c) has higher prices.

Amazon has succeeded where most other on-line retailers have failed because of one thing: they are very, very good at giving customers what they want. They mastered long-tail retailing before most people had heard the phrase. I can return to their web site after a year or two and they'll usually manage to actually suggest items that I would want to purchase.

Plus, and this is the big plus, they manage to make it really, really easy to find what I want and buy it.

Plus, and this matters at least as much as service, I actually trust Amazon to give me good service, not pass my credit card number on to random Russian mafia, and to take care of me if I have a problem.

(OK, the trust issues are pretty subjective, and for sure someone will jump up to say "Yeah, but this happened to my buddy one time...," but that's the point of trust: if you've got it you can move past the glitches that happen.)

(And given the seemingly endless string of credit card data breaches, it's probably good to not trust Amazon with that info either)

Re:I'll Bet That Amazon Can Make It Work

[rossdee]

"On a regular basis I hear from people exhorting me to abandon Amazon.com and only buy books at my local bricks and mortar retailer."

Thats just silly unless Amazon has a presence in your State, or you don't pay sales tax on books in your State.

Re:I'll Bet That Amazon Can Make It Work

[Xest]

Actually my local Borders used to be better because it helped me find things that I didn't know I wanted.

Unfortunately through a combination of tax dodging and other anti-competitive measures it pushed them out of business in the UK, so now all I'm stuck with is what Amazon "thinks" I want.

This is stupid

[wisnoskij]

With predictive algorithms and loads of local warehouses, which they already have or are building, they can already give you same day/next day delivery.

What are they going to do? Predict to the exact minute you order something, a day or two in advance, and have the package arrive within the hour of order? That is the only way they could do better than they are already doing.

And it seems to me, if you are going to try this predictive ordering, you put the merchandise on the trucks, but do not actually deliver it that day unless you get the order before drop off. It would not cost any more money to put a few boxed of popular good on trucks, and drive them around all day, and update the drivers schedule on the go with new orders. You do not even have to predict individual people, just groups, which is actually doable and easy.

Re:This is stupid

[redback]

For that idea to work, it would have to be Amazons own trucks, rather than UPS/Fedex/USPS

Re:This is stupid

[ColdWetDog]

Ever look in the back of a UPS truck recently?

Re:This is stupid

[PPH]

you put the merchandise on the trucks, but do not actually deliver it that day unless you get the order before drop off.

Seems to me, I've seen this marketing strategy somewhere already. Guy pulls up in parking lot with a van. "We have these speakers we couldn't deliver. Want a good deal?"

Re:This is stupid

[AmiMoJo]

Some guys tried this on me and it was really good fun screwing with them. The damn speakers came in a box with words like "MP3" and "mega bass" on the side. I ended up berating them for the poor quality of their scam, and photographed their number plate as they drove off to give to the police.

Well, I emailed it to the police, never actually heard anything.

Re:This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the US, but in the UK Amazon are trialling doing their own deliveries. maybe they won't be able to do it everywhere, but I'm not seeing a problem with it being on Amazon's own trucks, of course with the amount of packages Amazon has delivered, they probably won't have too much trouble getting the delivery companies they use to do what they want.

"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[rnturn]

``Of course, Amazon's algorithms might sometimes err, prompting costly returns.''

Has the law changed? At one time, if a company sent you something you didn't order, is was within your rights to merely keep it.

I will be charging Amazon a ``handling'' charge if they want to insist on me returning an item they shipped to me that I didn't order. My time and fuel costs for driving the item to a UPS store for the return are going to be compensated for.

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[Courageous]

No, the law hasn't changed at all. But that's not what they're referring to here. Amazon ships the item to a local dispatch point, and holds the final leg of the shipment until the last possible minute. If that final order doesn't materialize, Amazon is being charged for the charge to the local distribution point (and back).

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[Enry]

Or hoping that someone else in the area purchases the item.

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[rnturn]

I can see why they might be concerned about the returns costs even if that's what they're doing.

I ordered an IT book a couple of months ago and Amazon keeps sending me emails about other stuff I might be interested. I shudder to think how in the world they think that shipping another book on object oriented assembly language (kidding... that's not what I ordered) to the local shipping depot is going to be all that good for Amazon even if there was someone in my immediate vicinity that wanted to order such an item. Same goes for the CD I ordered from them a while back. It was from an artist that's rather obscure and I can't imagine too many others who'd be ordering the same music. (Though it be nice to know there were like-minded music listeners nearby. But please dear $DIETY, let's not get Amazon into the business of disseminating that sort of information; we all have enough trouble maintaining what little privacy we still have.)

For the things I might order from Amazon, I can't see how this shipping practice is going to keep me from going out and buying it at a local shop. Amazon's already killed off 99% of the local bookstores and music stores making Amazon the only place to order those items. As for the expensive items like big screen TVs and the like... why on earth, given the videos we've all seen with delivery drivers tossing electronics over fences and damaging them, would anyone buy something like that from any place other than a local store that delivers it themselves?

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[ColdWetDog]

They wouldn't do that. They would cache 10 copies of the latest Beyonce album and 5 copies of the latest romantic bestseller. Not the weird stuff that people around here want. They want the great teaming masses - this is quantity, not quality (or whatever it is we do around here).

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you insensitive clod, I code in OOASM every day. It has the unique property of combining the raw speed of interpreted BASIC with the readability of drunken Sanskrit :-)

Re:"Here's your gift from Amazon!"

[tibit]

So, you seriously think they no internal measures of the item's popularity or niche-ness?

Great Idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I do not have to pay. Well just back charge to Jeff Bedsore. Ha

'may dissuade customers from buying items from on'

[wisnoskij]

I will tell you what dissuades me from buying from Amazon, the the 50% broken package delivery rate, and that their "Customer Service" is just a robotic platitude response system. I have tried, there is no way to actually talk to a real person, or to get anything else but one of a few algorithmic responses.

It's a predictive supply chain

[gregor-e]

Amazon is merely pushing the tendrils of predictive modeling down a level in their supply-chain. No, they're not going to actually deliver something to you before you order it. But experience tells them, through predictive modeling, that someone in your immediate neighborhood is likely to order more boiled peanuts in the next day or so, so they simply box them up, put them on a truck and once that truck gets to your neighborhood, they lie in wait. Sure enough, Bubba Hatfield, your neighborhood transplant from the land of dixie, gets him a hankering for some more boiled peanuts which, for some reason, they never have on the shelves in the local grocery store. He'd really rather buy some off the shelf at a local store, on account of how bad his craving is, but knowing there's some boiled peanuts on the way will help salve his itch a little, so he fires up his browser and finds him some of that bliss in a can. Now, what to his wondering eyes does he see? Under delivery options, there's a new 'IMMEDIATE DELIVERY' option for just $5. What? Are they going to use a rocket to send a can of boiled peanuts all the way from wherever the hell Amazon is all the way out here? He skeptically reads the 'more information' link about this new delivery option. All it says is they guarantee delivery in 30 minutes or less, or his peanuts are free. What the hell? Yeah, an extra $5 for a can of peanuts is ridiculous, but the thought of being able to eat some of those heavenly morsels within just a few minutes is too much. He selects IMMEDIATE DELIVERY and punches the buy button. The friendly Amazon truck, which just happens to have boiled peanuts among its cargo, adds Bubba's address to its current route. In 27 minutes, 30 seconds, an incredulous Mr. Hatfield is gazing, teary-eyed, at a can of purest dixie delight right there in his hands.

Re:It's a predictive supply chain

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a shame there's no 'funny and informative' mod.

Re:It's a predictive supply chain

[cascadingstylesheet]

Now, what to his wondering eyes does he see? Under delivery options, there's a new 'IMMEDIATE DELIVERY' option for just $5. What? Are they going to use a rocket to send a can of boiled peanuts all the way from wherever the hell Amazon is all the way out here? He skeptically reads the 'more information' link about this new delivery option. All it says is they guarantee delivery in 30 minutes or less, or his peanuts are free. What the hell? Yeah, an extra $5 for a can of peanuts is ridiculous, but the thought of being able to eat some of those heavenly morsels within just a few minutes is too much. He selects IMMEDIATE DELIVERY and punches the buy button. The friendly Amazon truck, which just happens to have boiled peanuts among its cargo, adds Bubba's address to its current route. In 27 minutes, 30 seconds, an incredulous Mr. Hatfield is gazing, teary-eyed, at a can of purest dixie delight right there in his hands.

Nice (though you could write it just as well about some kind of hipster monkey poop coffee or something).

Well, if Bubba thinks it is worth an extra $5 to get his peanuts within the hour, or Pajama Boy thinks it's worth an extra $10 to get his fair trade monkey poop coffee faster, why not? It's no stupider than sometimes paying extra to just walk in a convenience store and grab some milk, instead of walking past 50 aisles and waiting in a long line to get it.

Re:It's a predictive supply chain

[DerekLyons]

The friendly Amazon truck, which just happens to have boiled peanuts among its cargo, adds Bubba's address to its current route. In 27 minutes, 30 seconds, an incredulous Mr. Hatfield is gazing, teary-eyed, at a can of purest dixie delight right there in his hands.

Goddammit, now I want some boiled peanuts...

(To those of us from the South, boiled peanuts are our In-N-Out burger....)

Re:It's a predictive supply chain

[rossdee]

There was another online company that had an "Instant" delivery option.
It was called ACME , and when Wile E Coyote pressed to order button the item materialised above his head, and promptly fell on him.

(I think this was in Looney Tunes - back in action )

Re:It's a predictive supply chain

[GrumpySteen]

Bravo!

The only criticism I have is that Bubba Hatfield would almost certainly call them goober peas.

Just A Small Question

[LifesABeach]

Yes it is true that I am going to order a 60" TV, but does Amazon's patent decribe from whom I am going to order my TV from?

Re: Just A Small Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it really matter? If it's the same product, Amazon can just shuffle inventory with the other vendors. Besides, it seems like half the stuff sold on their site is "fulfilled by Amazon

Re: Just A Small Question

[LifesABeach]

"Fulfilled" is a curious term to use for providing a, service.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[Anonymous Coward]

Click "Help" Contact Us, select your order, and have them call you.

--Sam

You mean like store inventory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't this already been done by stores which carry items I might buy in their inventory, so that when I come in, I can buy things right there and then? They anticipate what I will buy, and have it on the shelf.

How is something like this worthy of a patent!?

Re:You mean like store inventory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't this already been done by stores which carry items I might buy in their inventory, so that when I come in, I can buy things right there and then? They anticipate what I will buy, and have it on the shelf.

How is something like this worthy of a patent!?

Amazon has a specific method for predicting what items to stock, and how to minimize the incorrect guesses over their large distribution network. Additionally their solution is designed to be applied to an online retail environment, where medium and long term storage is not handled at the endpoints.

Comparing that to "buy stuff you think will sell" is about as relevant as comparing the enigma machine to "write your message in the form of a riddle only the chosen one will solve".

and BK pushed have it your way!

[Joe_Dragon]

McDonalds used to give you a hard time if you wanted your food a different way.

Other places push fresh food not food that has been sitting under a heat lamp.

Re:and BK pushed have it your way!

[Anonymous Coward]

BK said "Have it your way" to get people into the store, knowing that the vast majority who walked in thinking they can have it their way walked out with a #1.

George Costanza disapproves

[Anonymous Coward]

>since, erm... the 80286 days.
>implying Intel invented caching
>implying mainframes weren't doing caching before Intel was even a company

Small problem

[Tablizer]

"But we are out of inflatable rubber sluts."

Re:Small problem

[the eric conspiracy]

The new algorithm should be able to determine that I want the alternative to the inflatable rubber ones.

Re:Small problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheep?

There has to be a way to hack this

[Anonymous Coward]

to bankrupt amazon

pinky, I think we have some work to do

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[Anonymous Coward]

no way to actually talk to a real person

I wouldn't go that far. The last time I received the wrong item, I was able to talk to a real person in less than three hours of trying. They make it very hard, but it hyperbole to state that there's no way to do it.

When will then be now?

[LordNimon]

Colonel Sandurz: Try here. Stop.
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

leading to a more interesting DoS attack

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone can figure out what triggers the early shipping it would lead to an interesting Denial of Service attack. I am sure there are safeguards in place, but you never know...

physical stores

[roc97007]

It used to bother me, Amazon and the like causing the gradual downfall of physical stores, but for a large part, there is precious little differentiation. Whatever gadget I am interested in is often sealed in hard plastic so there's no way to interact with it, to do anything, really, besides look at it and read the specs, which I could do at Amazon (and there are customer reviews). I used to buy higher priced gear at brick and mortar stores because there was usually someone knowledgeable who could answer detailed questions, but that doesn't seem to be true anymore either. I suspect there will be a time when stores will only be for impulse purposes, and even for that we may go the direction they're going in Japan, where practically anything can be purchased from a vending machine.

Re:physical stores

[unitron]

It used to bother me, Amazon and the like causing the gradual downfall of physical stores, but for a large part, there is precious little differentiation. Whatever gadget I am interested in is often sealed in hard plastic so there's no way to interact with it, to do anything, really, besides look at it and read the specs, which I could do at Amazon (and there are customer reviews). I used to buy higher priced gear at brick and mortar stores because there was usually someone knowledgeable who could answer detailed questions, but that doesn't seem to be true anymore either. I suspect there will be a time when stores will only be for impulse purposes, and even for that we may go the direction they're going in Japan, where practically anything can be purchased from a vending machine.

Except that if you have that tightly sealed package in your hands you can look at it as closely as need be, examining it from all angles, even with a magnifying glass if you had the foresight to bring one with you to the store, whereas online half the time when you click the picture you get a separate screen where the picture is perhaps marginally larger at best and none of the shots are of the back which is what you really need to see.

Re:physical stores

[roc97007]

You have a point. When my old A/V receiver popped and fizzled, I decided it was time to move up to something that supported HDMI. I calculated the number and type of connections, and started my search. .....and found I had to reluctantly remove from consideration any receiver where a photo of the backside or comprehensive description of I/O was not available. So yes, there is a time when you need to look on the back and you can't always, online. But that's an artifact, I think, that will be fixed when vendors realize they're losing sales.

Re:physical stores

[unitron]

What's even harder is finding out which AV receivers upconvert composite to S-Video and both of those to component.

Although my original rant was more centered on adapters for using SATA drives on IDE controllers and being able to see the brand of the chipset.

But yeah, just about anything where a quick peek at the back will answer most of your questions about I/O and type of power supply will mostly mean pictures where they try to impress you with how pretty it is from the front, just as pictures that let you evaluate how useable the room inside a PC case is going to be are far fewer in number to the ones that show how well the LED glow emanates.

Apparently marketing despises potential customers performing any kind of technical analysis to see if the product is what we really want.

Amazon as Fat Tony

[Nova Express]

"For legal reasons, the trucks are always rolling!"

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[chris200x9]

How is this modded up to 2?! I know it's anecdotal but I've never had a broken package and I can always get someone on online chat if I need. Amazon has the best customer service I've ever experienced. It's not really too visible but you find help on the bottom of the page then click Problem With an Order? then contact us on the left side. From here you can send an email, get a call, or chat with customer service.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[chris200x9]

Also paying for return shipping? Come on now how is this not great customer service.

Likely misconceptions

[wonkey_monkey]

They're probably not going to fully deliver anything you didn't order. What rights would they have to claim it back?

What they can do is start getting stuff closer to you - shipping it to the local warehouse, even putting it on the back of the truck before you've committed to buying it. This is probably where the free gift/discount things will kick in, as it may work out cheaper for them to do that then retract the item at such a late stage.

Alternatively, of course, like the drone thing, it could just be another publicity stunt. And oh look, it worked.

Re:Likely misconceptions

[rossdee]

But the nearest local warehouse is 3 states over. If they had a warehouse in this state then I would have to pay sales tax, so I wouldn't be ordering from Amazon anyway.

Re:Likely misconceptions

[N1AK]

Amazon has played the sales tax dodging game for long enough now and it's going to end. With physical sales falling and web sales increasing it just isn't plausible to expect it to carry on. Amazon doesn't really care. They'll milk it as long as they can then move on.

UPS

[cstacy]

Some say Milk Man's come back to the future!

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[TheFirebyrd]

You really don't seem to be trying. You can not only talk to a person, you can have them call you. I've never had a broken package (though let's be fair, broken packages are usually the fault of the carrier unless there's poor packaging, and Amazon goes overboard with that) and the customer service I've received from Amazon is better than any I've received from other companies.

Gaming the system

[EmperorOfCanada]

It will take people very little time to game the system. They will figure out some way to buy a slew of little things that then let them lead up to a 55" TV being sent for free. Often these ML algorithms have trouble with edge cases. So you pick a pen, wishlist a pen, order a pen, pick a pen, wishlist a pen, order a pen for a few rounds, then you load up your wish list with 1000 55" TV. Maybe the system gave you a 1 in a 1000 chance of actually ordering the 55" screen but with 1000 of them in your wishlist it becomes quite certain that you are going to order one.

Or some other ingenious scheme. ML can come up with interesting solutions but disaster awaits when human common sense is out of the loop.

Cool! Now I just think about a flash drive...

[Applehu Akbar]

...And a one-cubic meter box will whack me in the head.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[wisnoskij]

I saw that. But I strongly prefer email. Do you actually get a person, with the power to do stuff if you/they call?
Considering the ridiculously algorithmic responses I got through email I was guessing that they might just have a service with voice recognition and speech capabilities for the phone.

And you are not trying if Amazon is considered pretty good service. In real companies you get to talk with charming, profession people, who customizes every message and who have the power to grant/customise anything they like.

Re:Gaming the system vs. Utility Model

[retroworks]

Good point.... Human ingenuity in a free market is indeed a beautiful thing. The potential value that Amazon might write off a premature delivery could incentivize some portion of buyers to, as you say, game the system. BUT, of course there will be others who will treat it as a utility, not taking time to "game the system", and instead pocket the convenience of delivery. Trash collections, electricity, gas, etc. make this likely.

In many US cities, diesel fuel delivery trucks "pre-fill" commercial truck fleets, saving the fleet owner drivers trips to the gas station. It was a new fuel sales model, and creates a savings for the fleet owner. A "gaming" fleet owner could claim, once, that the fuel wasn't needed and get free fuel, but he gives up the convenience of future delivery, "gamers" will be dropped from the model, and over time, Amazon will only service Utility Model clients.

It's a good model for consumable commodities like ink cartridges and office paper, and potentially high turnover items like cameras and cell phones, if the consumer (multinational corp) is a big enough consumer.

Amazon patents

[oldhack]

One-click purchase, pre-distribution based on "wish list" and purchase pattern, Amazon patent folder's gotta be a bag of laughter. But a tearful one for the society as a whole.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you are saying is that you did not actually try to talk to anyone. You just chated with the email robot. If you are going to go that route why not just use the chat feature. I am not familiar with Amazons, but I know that Dell and others email the chat log to you.

No, it's not prospective shipment to the customer

[Animats]

Read the patent. It's not about shipping unordered items to the customer. It's about shipping items, packed for delivery to an undesignated customer, to a shipping hub near the customer. If the customer orders it as predicted, a box gets a full delivery address on the label and goes on the truck; if not, it's held, sent back, or sold to someone else.

Amazon can sometimes avoid air shipment, yet still provide fast delivery, by doing this. The patent is about analyzing those tradeoffs in real-time and optimizing. This takes careful management, or the final shipping hubs will choke with boxed unsold inventory. The final hubs aren't full scale fulfuilment centers with big inventory, order picking, and packing; they're just box handling operations. If the system detects a partial truckload going somewhere and empty space at a destination hub, that's a good time to preposition some items likely to get ordered soon.

The level of coordination this implies is impressive.

Sex toys and fetishes

[Anonymous Coward]

People are going to be getting a lot of sex toys and fetish supplies in the mail real soon now.

"Customers also purchased.." Takes on a whole new meaning!!!

Sounds more like...

[dohzer]

This sounds more like they want to send you something they think you might want, and oh, if you can't be bothered sending it back, you might as well just buy it.

next: "amazon precrime"

[Anonymous Coward]

does the "minority report" item also get shipped ?

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[chris200x9]

Again, how is this modded 2?! You do get a real person who does have the power to do anything, I once mistakenly downloaded a game for the wrong platform, I asked for a refund and a blacklist of my key. They couldn't blacklist my key but I got a refund anyway. If I've ever gotten a defective product, which happened ONCE, they paid return shipping. Buy a kindle book and don't like it? Refund. Buy an audible book and don't like it? Refund. I honestly think amazon does have the best customer service out there today. Also could you please name even one large corporation out there where you get to talk with a charming, professional, customer service agent? Extra points if you can name one where you can talk to such a person right off the bat without having to jump through a bunch of computerized menu hoops. I very much doubt you can name one, except for y'know amazon.

Disappointed !

[corisco]

I liked the idea so much that I refuse to believe all you people who read the fine print and are now claiming that the title is misleading, so on and so forth. Can we go back to the part where I envisioned UPS/FEDEX/DHL dropping something off from Amazon without me ordering it? Thank you! Yes, I do think it's an excellent business model.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[blackest_k]

what dissuades me from buying through Amazon is the inability to get them to deliver to ireland, it's not everything but since there is no amazon.ie web site you have to use amazon.co.uk trouble is it's not till you get to the checkout you get the message we can't deliver to your location.
They won't filter out products that can't be delivered to your account address till you try to buy it.
ok Ireland is a relatively small country but as an EU country it might make sense to have an amazon.eu site so sellers willing to sell within europe can sell their products win win you'd think but no thats not what Amazon want to do...

     

Hmm

[Greyfox]

That would explain why I got a dildo, two pounds of Kona coffee, a Mickey Mouse Ears hat and the third season of My Little Pony in the mail last week...

Re:Hmm

[JSG]

When you have finished snorting the coffee through the (slightly modified) dildo and smoked the Pony whilst wearing the Ears, please ensure you fill in your reviews. I need to know ...

Cheers
Jon

Re:Hmm

[shikaisi]

That would explain why I got a dildo, two pounds of Kona coffee, a Mickey Mouse Ears hat and the third season of My Little Pony in the mail last week...

How come they shipped you my order?

Re:Hmm

[turtledawn]

oh, you were responsible for that tote I had to stow? That was an odd selection even for a Thursday.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so.. maybe that's why I received a paper bag stuffed with cow shit, a lighter and a plastic mustache. But can't figure why a furby was in the box.

Oops... Best Price and Freebies.

[pubwvj]

Oops... Best Price and Freebies.

That's going to hurt Amazon. UPS and FedEx alert me when packages are shipped to me...If I know they're doing this I can use it to get the best price, better than even they would give me. Once they've shipped it they need to start dropping the price fast so I don't refuse it.

Sonic Drive-In did it per customer

[raymorris]

When I worked at Sonic, we did a good job of starting a customer's order while they were in the turn lane, preparing to pull into the parking lot. Some customers were INDIVIDUALLY identified, including the lady who came by every morning on her way to work. Others were "profiled" - a truck full of construction workers at lunch time was almost always going to order some double meat jalapeno cheeseburgers. A minivan at dinner time driven by a mom-aged woman means get kid's meal packaging ready. Others were more general. Cars pulling in means we start cooking burger patties, toasting buns, and frying some fries.

Often, the food would finish cooking just as the customer was being read their total.

Re:Sonic Drive-In did it per customer

[RobertLTux]

Yeah doing that kind of thing is called DOING YOUR FRACKING JOB. In fact if you (and your crew) are good enough you can make up for a few bad Misses in the metrics by getting "negative" serve times.

Hot tip for the folks on the other side of the counter if you have a convoy and you are headed to a spot ring them up when you are about 10+(N*5) minutes away and tell whoever picks up the phone "Hi My name is %name% and i have X cars with Y adults and Z children about W minutes away (bonus if you can sort out the group order while on the phone)"

Re:Sonic Drive-In did it per customer

[tibit]

Now that's just creepy. A friend owns a local non-franchise drive-through joint and I've helped them implement just that, with a license plate reader looking precisely at what would pass for turn lanes. The length of the drive-through queue is monitored through another camera, and the license plates of cars entering the drive-through lane are read at two locations too. All of the processing is done without human intervention - nobody needs to look at those camera feeds, other than to feel good and for service/troubleshooting.

After an initial 3 month period of gathering statistics, it operated for another 2 months silently generating order data that was compared with orders entered by cashiers. After this dry run, it was turned on and does in fact generate orders on the fly. It has had some truly remarkable outcomes. During rush periods, most clientele is so predictable, that the average throughput is up 2x even when no-one is trying very hard. When a customer starts the order, the cashier's screen is already pre-populated with the expected items, in fact, and the items are marked with predicted likelihoods of being correct (it's a simple 4-level bar). Items with 4-bar-green status are likely already being prepared at that time.

Some customers, I swear, just don't exactly remember the exact options they order each time :)

Another thing that we added later was pre-swipe for the payment, so that at the time of receiving the food you don't have to waste time dealing with the credit card. The car at the pre-swipe location has the plate read, and it's compared to the plate read at the window location, so that even if people decide to leave the drive through, as happens sometimes, nobodies' payment is in jeopardy. To preempt the PCI nuts: I do know what I'm doing, and the occasional Target-style breach just makes me chuckle.

Re:Sonic Drive-In did it per customer

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, I'm impressed when a fast food joint can get my order right AFTER I've told them what I want.

Re:Sonic Drive-In did it per customer

[Firethorn]

10+N*5? Talk about overkill! When I worked in fast food we don't need no hour to prep for 10 people.

I'd say it's more N-5. Don't bother calling if you have less than 6 people. We only 'need' more than an hour if you're showing up with well over 60 people, and in the name of freshness we aren't going to start cooking until you're less than 10 minutes out anyways. The 60 minutes gives us time to maybe get somebody in early/keep somebody back for a bit, nobody on break.

For that matter, if 'most' are individually paying the cook line can keep up with the order-takers(exception exists). The ability to pop out 50 patties every 5 minutes does that, drop full bags of chicken nuggets, etc...

Amazon brick and mortar stores

[Anonymous Coward]

And then, they'll open these local warehouse locations to the public, so you can go to them and buy what you want directly.

Re:Amazon brick and mortar stores

[Anonymous Coward]

*SNORT* Nice one, AC. But, of course, they'll patent that, much to the chagrin of retail stores everywhere, assuming said retail stores still exist :-)

gift registries would be perfect application

[raymorris]

My wife has about 30 items on her baby registry at Target.com. Target doesn't know which of her friends will buy each item, but they can be pretty sure that most of them will be purchased. It would make sense for Target to go ahead and ship these items to the local store or distribution center and have them sitting by the loading dock.

Another patent idea for Amazon

[TheloniousToady]

How about this one:

System and Method for Motivating Customers to Pay for Expedited Shipping

The present invention is for a system and method to motivate customers to pay for expedited shipping by not shipping any non-expedited purchase until after the time that the customer would have received the purchase if he/she had paid for expedited shipping. Said system and method is distinct from ordinary delays which may occur naturally due to simply giving priority to expedited shipments over non-expedited shipments. Rather, the present invention is for a system and method of deliberately inflicting punishment on frugal customers in order to motivate them to pay exorbitant prices for one-time expedition of a purchase, and/or to pay for a special expedited-shipping subscription program. Said subscription program may include additional benefits such as free rental of worthless films, though that is not within the scope of the present invention.

Beyond the aforementioned method of implementing unnecessary shipment delays, the present invention would include a system for notifying customers of the progress of their orders, including non-shipment thereof, so that said customers would be able to distinguish reasonable delays from senseless delays, thereby maximizing their motivation to pay for or subscribe to expedited shipping in the future.

Disclaimer: I recognize that the above constitutes a software patent. I apologize in advance to those of you who, in the interest of humor, I have thereby offended by disclosure of the present invention. Be comforted, at least, that I am establishing prior art to prevent Amazon from actually patenting this.

Re:No, it's not prospective shipment to the custom

[JSG]

God God, they've invented JIT.

All that farting around with Finite Capacity Planning, Sales Forecasting and stuff I did for a pie factory around 15 years ago was to be actually invented around now.

We would generate a forecast of sales, fax it to the customer (multiples in the UK) and then manufacture and ship product based on that forecast. Most of the time the forecast would come back with a signature on it (an order).

Pies (Pasties, sausage rolls, pork pies etc etc) have a short life span and have to be generally made before the order to ensure they arrive into depot (ie into the customer's depot) with enough "code" (shelf life) to be saleable. We weren't perfect but it generally worked.

So, I submit that huge swathes of manufacturing have been doing this sort of thing for decades. I used text books that my dad had lying around from his days at University for my forecasting models and details on how logistics works.

Cheers
Jon

PS OK, my case is not exactly in 1-1 with the patent but any sufficiently large logistical operation has done this and much more routinely for a very long time but probably used less buzz words.
   

How to make it a hardware patent

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed a small part to make it patentable..
Just add this at the beginning

A computing device comprised of CPU, memory, and permanent storage containing a computer program that .....

Cool...

[koan]

Can they also tell when I change my mind and go to Newegg instead?

Oh, this wasn't

[dbitter1]

Wow, I thought /. was finally getting around to posting about Amazon Yesterday Shipping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA_gwzx39LQ

Guess it was slightly different...

Alright!

[ArcadeMan]

I'm going to put a shitload of Radeon R9 290X and Bitcoin mining hardware in my shopping cart, just in case they send it by mistake.

Ah Ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Its All About Taxes.

This little move allows Amazon Distribution Centers, and Jeff Bedsore, to claim non-ownership of all merchandise!

They well push taxes on the faithful ... Amazon customers. How thoughtful.

And therefore owe no State or Federal Taxes!

IRS will gladly assess the tax burden to the Amazon faithful. Sweet.

Ha ha.

Pharmacies / Chemists...?

[beaverdownunder]

My local chemist pre-orders my medication in anticipation that I will continue to buy it from them. However, there is no guarantee of this. I could go somewhere else, wait for that chemist to order the medication (it's not common) and then buy it from them. Still, since I have established a pattern of going to one particular chemist for said medication, that chemist regularly re-orders it after I collect it.

Is this prior art?

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[rossdee]

In December I ordered a 64oz bottle of humidifier cleaning fluid. When it arrived it was completely frozen solid, and leaked as I started to thaw it oit. I called Amazon and they gave me a full refund, I didn't even have to return the item. I thought that was pretty good, considering it was obviously the carriers fault, not Amazons

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[Belial6]

You've never ordered Himalayan salt bricks form Amazon then. Tried twice. Somehow they thought that a couple of little half air filled thin plastic bags would protect bricks in transit.

The returns were very easy, but I would rather not have to deal with that in the first place. I would order a lot of things from Amazon, but I do think about the likelihood of damage before placing the order.

Ah ha

[agrisea]

When I moved in 1993, my crystal ball disappeared.. Guess Amazon found it.

This happened many years ago in France

[ctrl-alt-canc]

In a small french town (I don't remember which one, the story appeared in the newspaper about forty years ago) a bookstore owner had the habit of sending by mail books to people living close to his store. The book was accompanied by a note saying: "For evaluation. If not interested please return".
A contractor was very annoyed by this, so one night he poured a ton of gravel in front of the bookstore, and he put a sign on the top of it saying: "For evaluation. If not interested please return.".

Re:This happened many years ago in France

[GuB-42]

BTW, this practice is now illegal in France.
If it happens, you just need to notify the seller that you keep the product at his disposal for two weeks. If he doesn't pick it up, it's yours. Of course you don't have to pay anything.

What about the Store?

[Jedi Binglebop]

They want to patent having items that people haven't ordered yet? Isn't that what local Stores do? That's why they're called a "Store" after all. -_-

Combined it with the network of lockers

[POPE Mad Mitch]

If this was combined with amazons network of lockers, they could pre-ship items they anticipate to sell into some of the lockers in that area, then when someone orders an item you can offer them immediate delivery if they are willing to go collect it from a nearby locker.

You would need some pretty accurate algorithms to make this work, as the space available in any given set of lockers is very small, but you dont have to be quite as accurate as per-customer, just down to the set of customers in the vicinity of the locker, and/or have used that locker in the past.

Ship it before it exists

[Frankie70]

Amazon can also ship stuff before it exists. I just got a Lumia with Windows 9 in the mail today.

You ARE being watched!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this scheme is profiling:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[minus9]

"You've never ordered Himalayan salt bricks form Amazon then."

Pfft, lucky guess.

Um, every major retailer on the planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Already does this.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[tibit]

No, it is the original product designers' fault for not making a freeze-proof product. It's not milk, you know, it the U.S. climate it is likely to freeze at various points during distribution. That stuff is usually shipped in unheated trailers.

This has been tried before

[hAckz0r]

It ended badly at the Boston Tea Party. The King of England anticipated that we would buy the tea he sent us whether we wanted to buy it or not.

Awesome

[zmollusc]

I have an idea where Amazon can set up their delivery nodes which will store goods until the nearby customers actually place an order! They can utilise all those defunct bricks-and-mortar shops which used to store goods until the nearby customers actually wanted them. They all went bust for some reason.

Happy that they'll reduce delivery time

[amybaker]

Glad to hear that Amazon is trying to find new ways to reduce delivery time. If you are like me and buy almost everything there, you should be happy to hear this. As I have a lot of purchases from there I’ve been trying to find a way to create a digital inventory of all of them where I can include all the information that comes with each purchase. I’ve recently come across Unioncy (www.unioncy.com) that automatically creates a catalogue of all my belongings with the information of the receipts in my email. Seems to be quite useful to me.

I must have been a test case...

[Erbo]

...and a failed test case at that.

At one point a couple of years ago, I received an unexpected delivery from Amazon, containing a bottle of PreSeed Fertility-Friendly Lubricant. This surprised both me and my fiancee, as I hadn't ordered it, nor would I order something like this, as my fiancee and I are deliberately not trying to conceive a child. (For one thing, she has DVT and is on Coumadin; a pregnancy would be potentially life-threatening for her.)

Checking my Amazon order history, I found no reference to any such order, nor did I find any reference to the order number on the invoice. I E-mailed their customer support, asking how I could return this item, since I hadn't ordered it and didn't want to be charged for it. They replied, saying that the shipment was in error, I had not been charged, and due to the nature of the item, they couldn't accept returns on it.

I wound up offering it to my Facebook friends, and shipping it to a friend in Illinois that spoke up first to claim it. She didn't say why she wanted it and I didn't ask.

Unsolicited mail = gift

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole thing and the way it is being described by the media is 100% BS. Amazon will never ship you an item before you order it, and neither will any other retailer, at least not in the United States. Why you ask? Because it would be unsolicited mail and in the USA the receiver of unsolicited mail may do whatever he/she choses with the item, burn it, keep it, sell it, return it (at no cost), etc. Seems really stupid to me, just a way to grab headlines just like the drone delivery BS.

AlphaA

Re:Unsolicited mail = gift

[aaronb1138]

Those laws only cover the USPS, and most of the time the courier of record is UPS even when USPS does final leg delivery. Secondly, Amazon will make the system a club you opt into where the terms include automatic shipments... probably call it Prime.

Impossible to implement

[Telek]

So let me get this straight. If they ship me something that I did not order, I can either:

a) keep it at full price

or

b) say that I don't want it

In the second case, they will either eat the shipping cost both ways, offer me a discount, or just give it to me for free.

Why would I ever select option a? Yes, then they wouldn't ship me stuff ahead of me asking for it, but considering that I typically don't even know what I want until I go looking for it, I'm not sure how Amazon is going to do any better. Especially based on what I see recommended (maybe 1 of 10 items I *might* want)... seems like it's conceptually doomed.

I could see this being useful for businesses who need JIT delivery, but there's already a system for that.

Definitely not a new idea

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL did this back in the 90s. I had stacks of their CDs.

I'm still deciding if I want to order their service or not.

Wait.

[aaronb1138]

So Amazon Prime is actually just going to be a reincarnation of Columbia House (which ironically is still around with a DVD business).

Tell me, will Amazon also ditch showing me the daily price for "on sale" items and instead display the hyper-inflated MSRP for everything?

Not just USPS

[Firethorn]

It doesn't just apply to the USPS, it applies to any delivery service. The hammer is just a bit bigger/quicker if they use USPS. Deliver something unsolicited to somebody, it's effectively a gift.

They read my thoughts!!!

[Optali]

How did they manage to know that what I wanted was just one of these delivery drones? That's genius mates!
And as I didn't order it I assume it to be a gift, of course... unless they are willing to pay for the return: I didn't order it, I wont pay for it's return.

Thanks Amazon.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[airdweller]

"I will tell you what dissuades me from buying from Amazon, the the 50% broken package delivery rate, and that their "Customer Service" is just a robotic platitude response system. I have tried, there is no way to actually talk to a real person, or to get anything else but one of a few algorithmic responses.
--
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree."

I'll see your anecdote and raise you two: first, you know you're trolling, right?; second, I've been their customer for over 5 years and had _one_ damaged package (the item was fine). Once, I received an old boombox (yes, that's right, a _boombox_ ) instead of a new high-end laptop. I had a return prepaid label and a $50 credit in 10 minutes (and a laptop the next day).

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[wisnoskij]

Well it will all depend on who delivers your route. 50% is actually less than my broken rate. I gave up with Amazon when they could not deliver a single unbroken item to my house.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[kaatochacha]

I honestly think amazon does have the best customer service out there today.

Primarily because the stores I used to deal with , with BETTER customer service, have been destroyed by Amazon.

Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from

[mcgrew]

I have tried, there is no way to actually talk to a real person, or to get anything else but one of a few algorithmic responses.

You know, when you troll you really should log off first, your lame sig isn't going to prevent your trolls from being downmodded. I've had to return exactly one item; a laptop battery that didn't fit my laptop. No problem contacting them, no problem returning it, no need to contact my CC company because Amazon did it themselves.

I've bought books and DVDs from them, not once has anything been damaged.

If you'd left out the part about "no way to contact them" I'd have told you to complain to the company that shipped the item (the ones I've gotten were shipped by UPS). But that "no way to contact them" is a dead giveaway that you've never bought anything from Amazon, much less had to return anything.