A friend of mine works for a large battery company. The moment the hurricane forecast shows one headed for a populated area they start packing and dispatching semis of AA/C/D/9V batteries to all the Walmarts, Targets, Grocery Stores, etc in that area. I'm sure the bottled water and plywood manufacturers do the same. How does this differ?
Those are examples of predicting demand changes on a macro scale.
Amazon wants to do this on a more micro, person-by-person level. For example, you visit a product page for some specialty shampoo. Amazon might decide to ship that product before you even add it to your cart.
My response to Amazon, if they do this, is something I call predictive returns. As in, I predict I will return everything they ship to me in this manner.
I will go on record as saying that this is similar to Amazon announcing drones. It's part PR move but true there is an obvious connection to reality.
Hard to believe that Amazon is going to move the needle much with something like this. Shipping is already fast. Getting it where it needs to be is obvious. As you have noted there are many examples of manufacturers anticipating demand and doing something similar. But they don't have or file for patents. What about a patent for anticipating that your chain restaurant will need less help on certain days of the year or when it rains? Most business would not waste time on this thing (patents) although they do these things if they can. They don't crow about it though (unless they are doing a dog and pony show).
This is the type of thing that most companies would do in many cases and never talk about. Because they aren't as obsessed with creating an image of invincibility which Amazon spends so much time with. [1] It's kind of like the shock and awe of US Military propaganda (where they show the well oiled military machine.) People eat this type of thing up. "Oh look how special Amazon is".
[1] To scare off competition. Look how mighty we are. Look at the barriers to competing with us!
The benefit I see with this is they can snail mail it to the local hub so total shipping costs would be lower for Amazon when you do actually order the product even if you're using Prime.
I don't think they are improving shipping speed to compete with online stores, as much as to compete with stores in your community. I think the goal is to make ordering from Amazon almost as quick as getting in your car and going to a local store.
I agree with you - seems very similar. They may use data from individuals, but they will aggregate it - needs to be a relevant sample size with some kind of pattern to it. IMHO, having a flat panel TV in my wishlist is probably not reason enough for Amazon to move it to a local warehouse. The biggest category of things that still get my local dollars are stuff I buy at the drugstore, that I sometimes buy bulk on Amazon when I think ahead. If I knew I could get it same-day from Amazon on Saturday ... I'd continue to sit here reading hacker news instead of putting on some pants.
This type of plan seems a lot more reasonable when you picture it coordinated with a marketing plan or advertising campaign. Given Amazon's analytics, they can certainly target a certain geographic area with an ad and predict the response rate of that campaign, while the estimated quantities of product are already staging at the local warehouse.
Because there's no 'National wants a 24" Asus 1ms thin-framed LED gaming monitor, Logitech gaming controller, 5.1 surround audio, and ATS Acoustic Foam Corner Base Traps Forecasting Service'. It's logical to pick out geographic major events from current services and ship batteries, tarpaulins, baby formula and bottled water to them. But for everything else, you need fancier machine learning and lots of training data, and not everyone has that. Walmart doesn't have my wish lists. Amazon does.
Edit: Before anyone mentions it, don't buy those bass traps. They're not big enough to do the job for low frequencies. For that you need a pallet of rockwool and a weekend carpentry project ;-)
I imagine transportation costs could quickly spiral out of control if you didn't have the analytics tuned correctly. But one particular use case comes to mind: you look at a couple items, maybe even add them to you cart, then walk away. A lot of retailers now will send you an email for "abandoned carts"—imagine if that email also included a line that said, "Oh, and if you finish your order, we'll have it on your doorstep tomorrow." Pretty compelling.
Indeed, there is a lot of variable to consider and tune, each with it's own pros and cons. Unfortunately, whichever of the many variables you consider, and however you tune them, you'll be infringing Amazons patent.
So does that mean someday I will be able to call in a same-day airdrop of semi-uncommon product x that has been sitting in my amazon shopping cart or wishlist?
An interesting tactic. If you know you're going to want something but don't want to pay for it just yet, add it to your cart a week or two in advance to let it "preload". Real-world precaching.
My brain really wants this to happen, but my wallet doesn't. That would be really effective! If they really could get the costs right maybe it could happen - of course, the math just might not work out.
Isn't it a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy? As in, Amazon make a loose prediction about what you'll want to buy, but the hook of having that one available within 1 hour biases you to be more likely to buy that item. Then Amazon get to say "we're amazing at prediction!" whereas they're actually amazing at altering customer behaviour. Which isn't to say that that's a bad thing, it's just a bias which needs awareness.
What if everything you bought from Amazon was automatically available for resale used after a certain period of time? You're thinking of buying the $79 textbook, but Bob who lives across the street will sell it to you for just $39 (Amazon gets $10 for facilitating the transaction, but will take the risk) and Amazon knows he's home right now.
Or you borrow it from him for a week for $19, he'll also lend you his blender for another $19.
Unfortunately, reasonable customer-oriented space is much more expensive than a (semi-robotic) dimly lit warehouse somewhere on the industrial outskirts of a city.
Ah, similar to Amazon's "shopping cart," the shop could provide a physical cart (imagine a cross between a baby stroller and a faraday cage) to help customers carry inventory to the exit of the store.
Why stop there? Similar to amazon one click purchase, if customer has amazon credit card with rfid chip, they can simply pick up the item and walk out of the store - it would be charged auto magically.
Yeah, but that isn't exactly news. Or patentable. (The details of having the analytics fine-tune how much of what to push to which edge node may be patentable under current law, though...)
They got a patent for this? "People in this city order this book more often than other cities. Okay, let's make a deal with our shipper there to stock some onsite."
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately hyperbolic, but I think your example is an extreme oversimplification.
More like "Joe Bob in Nowhereville, KY has this item in his wishlist. He looked at it three times in the past three days, and twice today. The last time he exhibited this pattern he bought it within two days, as have 78% of the people in this geographical region who have exhibited similar patterns. Let's ship to a local transit in prep for his order."
Actually really cool - and at least based on the summary (can't view the linked doc b/c of missing plugin of some kind) it's a business method patent as opposed to a software patent.
This is a patent for turning UPS and Fedex distribution centers into warehouses. They're preloading the distribution system so that the only latency is the last tens of miles, rather than hundreds or thousands. It could be same day assuming you got your order in before 4am or whenever the trucks roll. Or even later if they have a more courrier oriented partner.
Dell currently does something very similar. If you have "same day 4-hour enterprise support", then the replacement part will most likely come from a distribution center collocated with your local courier company.
This makes sense, especially if combined with a local retail channel. It would be neat to be able to travel somewhere and get hooked on some obscure local food/drink and come back home to find that you're local shop now has it in stock automatically.
So Amazon would basically fill an actual shopping cart with your current order at a hub close to you, and when you're done paying, would just come out of the neighbour's driveway and wheel the cart to your door...
It's almost like Amazon is recreating the local retail experience, except that all the mom and pops are owned a monolithic entity with no ties to your community and you can't actually check out the products before you buy.
I'm heavily opposed to winner-take-all and so my boycott of Amazon books must continue. I don't really buy anything other than physical books off of Amazon, so it's not a huge sacrifice.
This will work great for things that people "subscribe" to like toilet paper and dog food, which, I kid you not, is cheaper via Amazon than locally, and, someone else lugs it to my house for me.
Amazon once sent me the wrong parcel by mistake. I expected a long convoluted returns process, but instead Amazon just said I could keep all the items and that anything I didn't want, I should give to friends or a local charity.
It's probably cheaper & more time-efficient for Amazon to write off the cost of the item than to deal with reshipping & restocking an item that can't be sold as new anymore.
This is not shipping before you buy. This is online interface for a brick-and-mortar store (such that many overheads of traditional stores are gone). Call it a distributed warehouse if you like.
Patents Office got fooled into seeing this as an invention. The violation could happen only if they could predict what I specifically want to buy and ship it for me specifically. If all they do is optimise distribution, well that's happening since the dawn of trade may I guess.
120 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadThough I suspect Amazon isn't filing this patent as a means to control the concept (isn't it even that revolutionary that it needs protecting?).
Amazon wants to do this on a more micro, person-by-person level. For example, you visit a product page for some specialty shampoo. Amazon might decide to ship that product before you even add it to your cart.
You can't just boil a patent down to two words and then claim prior art.
Hard to believe that Amazon is going to move the needle much with something like this. Shipping is already fast. Getting it where it needs to be is obvious. As you have noted there are many examples of manufacturers anticipating demand and doing something similar. But they don't have or file for patents. What about a patent for anticipating that your chain restaurant will need less help on certain days of the year or when it rains? Most business would not waste time on this thing (patents) although they do these things if they can. They don't crow about it though (unless they are doing a dog and pony show).
This is the type of thing that most companies would do in many cases and never talk about. Because they aren't as obsessed with creating an image of invincibility which Amazon spends so much time with. [1] It's kind of like the shock and awe of US Military propaganda (where they show the well oiled military machine.) People eat this type of thing up. "Oh look how special Amazon is".
[1] To scare off competition. Look how mighty we are. Look at the barriers to competing with us!
It's fairly clear Amazon sees that as a key source of future growth.
Edit: Before anyone mentions it, don't buy those bass traps. They're not big enough to do the job for low frequencies. For that you need a pallet of rockwool and a weekend carpentry project ;-)
Of course, this would probably make shipping to me a lot cheaper.
But what if it was on your doorstep at 5PM when you get home, and it didn't cost you a dime extra?
It's also pretty clear why Amazon would love this; they could give you Prime 2-day delivery times with Super-Saver 2-week postage rates.
Or you borrow it from him for a week for $19, he'll also lend you his blender for another $19.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA_gwzx39LQ
They should go back to the drone delivery plans, they were more thoroughly thought out.
Actually that is pretty sweet idea.
Totally obvious.
More like "Joe Bob in Nowhereville, KY has this item in his wishlist. He looked at it three times in the past three days, and twice today. The last time he exhibited this pattern he bought it within two days, as have 78% of the people in this geographical region who have exhibited similar patterns. Let's ship to a local transit in prep for his order."
Actually really cool - and at least based on the summary (can't view the linked doc b/c of missing plugin of some kind) it's a business method patent as opposed to a software patent.
I am picturing it more like turning the UPS and Fedex pipelines into short-term storage.
The shipping & distribution equivalent of delay line memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
I'm heavily opposed to winner-take-all and so my boycott of Amazon books must continue. I don't really buy anything other than physical books off of Amazon, so it's not a huge sacrifice.
If I keep getting boxes on my doorstep that I didn't order, I don't think Amazon should expect me to keep sending them back.
I'm not turning my front porch into an Amazon micro-warehouse.
It's probably cheaper & more time-efficient for Amazon to write off the cost of the item than to deal with reshipping & restocking an item that can't be sold as new anymore.
For example, the 7th Harry Potter book, especially if you ordered previous books with Amazon.
Or some videogame series, or something similar. Still, for these there's a "pre-order" period, so preshiping without a preorder is kind of moot
Patents Office got fooled into seeing this as an invention. The violation could happen only if they could predict what I specifically want to buy and ship it for me specifically. If all they do is optimise distribution, well that's happening since the dawn of trade may I guess.