Amazon says it can ship items before customers order William M. Welch, USA TODAY 8:50 p.m. EST January 18, 2014 Online retail giant Amazon says it knows its customers so well it can start shipping even before orders are placed. The Seattle-based company, which late last year said it wants to use drones to speed package delivery, gained a patent last month for what it calls "anticipatory shipping,'' the Wall Street Journal reports. Amazon, the Journal reported, says it may box and ship products that it expects customers in a specific area will want, based on previous orders and other factors it gleans from its customers' shopping patterns, even before they place an online order. Among those other factors: previous orders, product searches, wish lists, shopping cart contents, returns and other online shopping practices. Amazon has worked to cut delivery times as a way of encouraging more orders and satisfying customers, such as by expanding its warehouse network and making some overnight and even same-day deliveries. Amazon didn't estimate how much delivery time it expects to save, or whether it has already put its new system to work, the Journal reported. "It appears Amazon is taking advantage of their copious data," Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst, told the Journal. "Based on all the things they know about their customers they could predict demand based on a variety of factors." To minimize the cost of unwanted returns, Amazon said it might consider giving customers discounts or even make the delivered item a gift. "Delivering the package to the given customer as a promotional gift may be used to build goodwill," the patent said.
I could see this as a big deal for those that order the same products say every week, month or every 90 days. Those are the people that they may attempt 'Ship before you order'. But they will run their algorithms to ensure they aren't sending product that gets returned and adjust accordingly. It means nada to the occasional shopper. I'd still like to see them drone ship a 30 ton arbor press with amazon prime free shipping. Anyway, I'm looking for those drones take off big time. It's gonna be like skeet shooting with presents.
I don't think they mean to ship to the buyer, but very well could mean launch the product to a warehouse closer to the customer as an anticipatory move. Not a bad way to do business, but inventory carrying costs will rise. JIT could become an interesting exercise if they intend to apply it to irregular buys vs. regular buys as Visu suggests. (Flying pinatas?)
If I remember... any un- solicited item shipped in the mail is assumed to be free... if Amazon want's to gift me that's fine... I will not spend the time or money to return the item...
Sounds like I need to start putting very expensive items in my shopping cart, if this is the case. Lol
I'm far more scared of the NSA vs Amazon.com The US Government straight up does not give a fuck about its citizens and violates their rights on a daily basis under the guise of protecting us from terrorists (lol).
The data they have on everyone's purchases worries me because giving it up to .goob would give them a very good profile on each person. They have a 12 year track record on my purchases and that scares me.
that will not do you any good at all, as long as it ships to the same place , all those accounts will be linked. method of payment will also link those accounts cash check PayPal.
I think I am more worried about my identity being stolen from a hacker getting into Amazon's account. I am not that worried about them telling .Gov about what I have purchased from Amazon. It's not like .gov doesn't have the means to figure it out anyway, if they really wanted to know. If you are connected your privacy is pretty much shot anyway.
Anybody watch the YOU LIE hour Starring our Commander in Chief talking about the NSA? I was laughing through most of it and must have yelled out YOU LIE 15-20 times.
I was just thinking about this today while I was placing and order with them..... amazon has a nice record of your spending habits....
Well they say all things must come to an end. I hope Congress has the guts to arrest Lois Lerner and get all of the e-mails she sent, then we'll all get a good laugh!! AND Cummings is caught with ties to her, after the phony outrage he displayed on her second testimony, he'd better hope he can walk away from that. Looks like he might have been involved. It completely disgusts me how complacent everyone is at the ineffectiveness of the checks and balances that are supposed to protect us from this rampant deceit and corruption. 6 Billion in missing funds to contractors, WHAT???? and they want to raise taxes by 1.5 trillion dollars more. I think their filling swimming pool's full of our money and having weird orgies in it or something.