Ask HN: A plugin/extension to add Amazon order info back to emails | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: A plugin/extension to add Amazon order info back to emails

3 pointstempestn6 comments

I was recently reminded of how annoying it is that Amazon no longer includes order details in their confirmation emails. It got me thinking, maybe there exists (or could exist) some kind of tool that would scan for Amazon confirmation emails, and when found, would automatically reply to the thread with the details of your order (which would be pulled from your Amazon account, much like the shopify app does).

And come to think of it, you could do this even without giving the tool access to your email, if you just set up an automated forwarder to forward any amazon emails to it, and then it could reply with the details. (Would still need amazon access though.)

Is anyone aware of such a tool, or interested in creating it?

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But why does Amazon no longer include order details in their confirmation emails? They did so before 2020. The most plausible explanation for this change is to prevent Google from mining your detailed purchase history.

Some other theories about this were discussed on Hacker News[1], such as forcing you to log back to Amazon to find out what was shipped in order to get you to buy more stuff, or to prevent people from building a shopping cart app that uses data from your Amazon emails.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30651997

Oh I’d sponsor this. See my tweet a couple of years back: https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1505719741620449281

I'm actually tempted to build it myself. The question is, would Amazon come down on it. They seem to allow the Shopify Shop app integration, but perhaps there were some negotiations behind that.

I can see When is it arriving, ship to, order # and the photo of the order. What are we talking here ?

Amazon order emails (confirmations and shipping notices) don't say what was actually ordered, just an order number and maybe a price. So if you buy a lot of stuff on Amazon and/or don't remember what you ordered, you have to click through to find it.

Also you can't search your past emails to see when/where something was purchased; you have to remember that you bought it on Amazon, and then search there. Much more convenient to have it in your email archive along with receipts from other sources.

That's not true (for all of Amazon at least), I ordered a phone case:

Subject: Your Amazon.se order of "Spigen Liquid Air Fodral..."

Has arriving, delivery option, place it will be sent to, delivery preference, order total, payment method, name+picture+link of the product(s) and order number

And then shipping notice:

Subject: Your Amazon.se order of "Spigen Liquid Air Fodral..." has been dispatched!

and finally:

Subject: Arriving today: Spigen Liquid Air Fodral...

With order number and name+picture+link of the product(s)

Which has the same (+ more) information

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