Retailers hide the costs of delivery

theatlantic.com

10 points·CaptainZapp··7 comments

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We’ve gone from customer pays for shipping, to free shipping, to 25% of the US prepays for shipping.

After free and faster free shipping, the next best thing feels like predicting what you want and sending it to you.

I was joking about the same thing at the lunch yesterday.

But amazon is already doing it with their reoccurring product purchases.

Amazon experimented with that years ago.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/1/18/5320636/amazon-plans-to-s...

> Drawing on its massive store of customer data, Amazon plans on shipping you items it thinks you'll like before you click the purchase button. The company today gained a new patent for "anticipatory shipping," a system that allows Amazon to send items to shipping hubs in areas where it believes said item will sell well. This new scheme will potentially cut delivery times down, and put the online vendor ahead of its real-world counterparts.

IIRC, they now site the most frequently ordered items in smaller, more localized distribution centers for quicker/shorter shipping.

Grocers have been doing this for decades...

People have been doing this far longer.

There's nothing novel about putting stacks of toilet paper in warehouses near big populations.

That's the large-scale strategy, but IIRC Amazon had per-buyer prediction. If you looked at a specific item and it predicted you're likely to order it soon, it would be delivered to a distribution center closer to you. (Using free space in a truck already heading there anyway)

Pre-positioning staples like toilet paper isn't new, no.

Pre-positioning a few black truffles because one person thought about buying them yesterday is, though.

It's only free shipping if the basket is more than £20 and there's no bulky items.

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