Amazon patents 'anticipatory shipping'

Taking buying process to the next level, Amazon has reportedly filed a patent for shipping products based on prediction of what the buyers would buy, even before they have bought it.

The online shopping site, in a bizarre act, had filed a patent in August 2012, describing the method of “anticipatory shipping” and was granted the solo right on December 24 last year.

The idea is to minimize human involvement and automatically determine the requirements of customers and ship the product in the general direction, even before buyers have placed their orders, Tech Crunch reported.

The Amazon delivery patent intends to route the supposedly-buyable products to a select address or a certain geographical area using historical buying patterns of buyers or preferences expressed via surveys/questionnaires, buyer’s habits and more.