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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."
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!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
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!
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.".