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I find this hard to believe. But there a again, I don't collect patterns about my behaviour so it could be true. Sometimes I look at Amazon and then buy the p

I find this hard to believe. But there a again, I don't collect patterns about my behaviour so it could be true. Sometimes I look at Amazon and then buy the product elsewhere, say if I spent 3 occasions over a few days looking at a product, does that breach some threshold somewhere for them to say "we have one on the hook, lets start moving this to a warehouse near him just in case"

noonespecial 10y ago
Its easy to believe if the marginal cost to ship the item approaches 0. For Amazon, this might actually be close enough to true to matter. Especially after this move.
- bluGill 10y ago
  It probably does approach 0. The truck is going anyway, most of the cost of a truck is wind resistance so adding more books up to the weight limit is close to zero. Amazon is probably never shipping a single book, they are using analytics to decide if they should ship a case of books. If they think you are 90% likely to buy a book tomorrow but you are the only one who will it isn't worth the risk. If they decide 100 people are 50% likely to buy a book, sending a box of 100 books is a good investment - if 50 people buy tomorrow that implies 40 will buy the next day and 30 the day after and then 45 the next day and so on for a few weeks/months as sales slowly drop to zero.
ergothus 10y ago
I have no actual knowledge on the topic, but I presume it's not calculated on a purely individual level. If 100 people live within the range of the local distribution warehouse are interested in this book, and they say "this one is 87% likely to buy, this one is 43% likely to but..." they can work out a model that results in very few over-shippings. But again, I know nothing, other than thinking about it a bit when the patent app became known.
- djhworld 10y ago
  Calculating it on an aggregate level over a number of consumers makes more sense to me.
- djhworld 10y ago
  Calculating it on an aggregate level over a number of consumers makes more sense to me.
- wojt_eu 10y ago
  As a result a book about Computer Science would be pre-emptively shipped to a warehouse near SV and investment book about economy and shipped near NY.
  - Roritharr 10y ago
    The patterns in this would be very exciting to know for people who are looking for their "tribe". It's actually something very hard to find out before moving somewhere thats not the Valley, what is the main intellectual focus of the region, is there none? I missed a lot in my own childhood and upbringing to have people in my environment that we're or we're in contact with people at the top of their field, having deeper understanding of something instead of just struggling at their level.
yomly 10y ago
We all talk about Google and Facebook's rich data source for human behaviour. We talk less about Amazon's rich data source on consumer behaviour. As Google themselves once said Amazon is a search engine for products/shopping.[0] They said this some 3~ years ago, Amazon has continued to expand since. It is fairly safe to assume Amazon is the single most largest consolidated reserve of consumer behaviour data on the world now. Facebook can gauge the difference between different types of likes from how you read a page[1], Amazon does too from their harvested clickstream. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29609472 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29609472 [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2016/01/how_facebook_s_news_feed_algorithm_works.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2016/01...
dalore 10y ago
Most of the time you won't realise this behaviour.
mikeash 10y ago
With a lot of data, the aggregate probabilities will become reasonably accurate. If they predict that there's a 60% chance you'll buy, that they'll make $2 from you if you do, and they'll lose $2 on wasted shipping if you don't, then on average they'll make money by prepositioning your prospective purchase. For Prime orders I can see it making a huge difference. Two-day shipping gets really expensive compared to slower methods when shipping over large distances, but for short distances it can be done entirely on normal ground delivery trucks and is cheap. If prepositioning wastes a few bucks sometimes and saves a bunch of money on expensive two-day shipping other times, it could be a big win.

noonespecial 10y ago

Its easy to believe if the marginal cost to ship the item approaches 0. For Amazon, this might actually be close enough to true to matter. Especially after this move.

bluGill 10y ago
It probably does approach 0. The truck is going anyway, most of the cost of a truck is wind resistance so adding more books up to the weight limit is close to zero. Amazon is probably never shipping a single book, they are using analytics to decide if they should ship a case of books. If they think you are 90% likely to buy a book tomorrow but you are the only one who will it isn't worth the risk. If they decide 100 people are 50% likely to buy a book, sending a box of 100 books is a good investment - if 50 people buy tomorrow that implies 40 will buy the next day and 30 the day after and then 45 the next day and so on for a few weeks/months as sales slowly drop to zero.

ergothus 10y ago

I have no actual knowledge on the topic, but I presume it's not calculated on a purely individual level. If 100 people live within the range of the local distribution warehouse are interested in this book, and they say "this one is 87% likely to buy, this one is 43% likely to but..." they can work out a model that results in very few over-shippings. But again, I know nothing, other than thinking about it a bit when the patent app became known.

djhworld 10y ago
Calculating it on an aggregate level over a number of consumers makes more sense to me.
djhworld 10y ago
Calculating it on an aggregate level over a number of consumers makes more sense to me.
wojt_eu 10y ago
As a result a book about Computer Science would be pre-emptively shipped to a warehouse near SV and investment book about economy and shipped near NY.
- Roritharr 10y ago
  The patterns in this would be very exciting to know for people who are looking for their "tribe". It's actually something very hard to find out before moving somewhere thats not the Valley, what is the main intellectual focus of the region, is there none? I missed a lot in my own childhood and upbringing to have people in my environment that we're or we're in contact with people at the top of their field, having deeper understanding of something instead of just struggling at their level.

yomly 10y ago

We all talk about Google and Facebook's rich data source for human behaviour. We talk less about Amazon's rich data source on consumer behaviour. As Google themselves once said Amazon is a search engine for products/shopping.[0] They said this some 3~ years ago, Amazon has continued to expand since. It is fairly safe to assume Amazon is the single most largest consolidated reserve of consumer behaviour data on the world now. Facebook can gauge the difference between different types of likes from how you read a page[1], Amazon does too from their harvested clickstream. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29609472 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29609472 [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2016/01/how_facebook_s_news_feed_algorithm_works.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2016/01...

dalore 10y ago

Most of the time you won't realise this behaviour.

mikeash 10y ago

With a lot of data, the aggregate probabilities will become reasonably accurate. If they predict that there's a 60% chance you'll buy, that they'll make $2 from you if you do, and they'll lose $2 on wasted shipping if you don't, then on average they'll make money by prepositioning your prospective purchase. For Prime orders I can see it making a huge difference. Two-day shipping gets really expensive compared to slower methods when shipping over large distances, but for short distances it can be done entirely on normal ground delivery trucks and is cheap. If prepositioning wastes a few bucks sometimes and saves a bunch of money on expensive two-day shipping other times, it could be a big win.