Amazon to Patent Future-Telling “Anticipatory Shipping”

Not content with shipping your packages with an army of drones, Amazon has patented an innovative delivery system that will be able to predict your future shopping wants and needs.

“Anticipatory shipping” as it’s called, will aim to cut down on the shipping delay between purchasing an item and the customer receiving it.

Though expedited shipping methods exist, the cost is oftentimes too great, and impatient online shoppers who want their items right now may opt to go to physical retailers to get it.

Amazon’s patent describes a shipping method that will actually send products to one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and then distribute that to a general geographical location closer to the products’ potential buyers.

According to the filing, the actual method of predicting demand can be an extension of the algorithms “similar to or interoperable with algorithms for a general inventory management.”

For instance, Amazon, a master of big-data, can look at a customer’s ordering and viewing history and make anticipatory shipping conclusions from that data.

If a customer were to look at an item multiple times, Amazon may take it as a sign that there is a high likelihood of the customer wanting that item in the near future.

Amazon will ship it to that customer’s nearest delivery center, and like magic, it’ll show up at the customer’s doorstep sooner and at a lower cost.

Unlike Amazon’s proposed drone delivery system, anticipatory shipping may actually be feasible in the near future since it appears to be a natural evolution of the tools the company already has in place.

It’s a major win for instant-gratification.