Anticipatory shipping by Amazon

The title came from a scheme of shipping which amazon was considering. I think this scheme has a huge possibility to change the whole idea of shopping.

Amazon Patents “Anticipatory” Shipping — To Start Sending Stuff Before You’ve Bought It | TechCrunch

You may think advertisements or recommendations on websites are more efficient than it, but I don't think it's simple. I think it's because there is a totally different impact for customers to receive items. There has to be a big difference between just seeing items in a small part of your web browser and seeing real items in front of your eyes. It might increase the percentages of purchase dramatically.

However I know it still has tons of problems. First of all, it's risky to ship items which customers may not buy. It would obviously cost a lot. To resolve this issue, an algorithm itself for selecting items and targeting customers needs to be refined considerably. On the other hand, they need to have alternative ways, as the link said, for delivering items to the other people if an original customer denies the shipped item.

Anyway, this is still a great idea. It's worth keeping an eye on for a while.