"anticipatory shipping", this is pretty much just saying that local warehouses/stores should anticipate demand by using as much data as possible. For Amazon that means wishlists, viewing history, shopping carts, emails etc. This is good Jeff Bezos, but not good enough. I could do this better.
In order to best anticipate demand, they should be trying to make deals with manufactures instead. This system would initially work best with subscription based products. And then we could figure out how to turn everything into a type of subscription.
Manufactures have a release cycle that is important to them staying 'competitive'. So they have to constantly make new models and 'retire' the old ones by planned obsolescence forcing us to buy the new slightly improved model that has a time bomb built in it to go off when the next model comes out.
So basically Amazon needs to place their customers in a 'release preference' category. With names like, 'bleeding-edge','beta','stable','2 generations back', or 'annually/biannually'. This could make manufactures more responsible and get the latest designs out of secret labs and into consumers hands quicker.
Customers can choose which category they want to be included in for different product families. So for example, I might choose the 'bleeding-edge' release cycle for my phone, but prefer a biannual subscription for a refrigerator or car.
And unless someone has a brand preference, the best products can be automatically chosen based on reviews from amazon and social networks and blogs and benchmarks on hardware/battery life/speed/etc
Discounts will be given for recycling your previous models, and as our 3d printing becomes better and closer to home, eventually we might just get 'ink' credits to print out phones, computers, cars, furniture, TV's etc.
On a side note, this kind of system would be the system of all systems and it would be hard for competitors to start (without the data owned by Amazon). So I don't think 'Amazon' should get to boast and claim this system as their own and keep the profits. I would like to see this type of system organized at the national level at first (until we fully embrace globalization) and we could vote on an open source 'shopping and distribution' system whose profits go back directly to the people in the countries they operate. Then people could join and accept a national system to be proud of, one whose contributors, ideas,transactions,money,etc are all open and viewable by anyone to encourage accountability.
In order to best anticipate demand, they should be trying to make deals with manufactures instead. This system would initially work best with subscription based products. And then we could figure out how to turn everything into a type of subscription.
Manufactures have a release cycle that is important to them staying 'competitive'. So they have to constantly make new models and 'retire' the old ones by planned obsolescence forcing us to buy the new slightly improved model that has a time bomb built in it to go off when the next model comes out.
So basically Amazon needs to place their customers in a 'release preference' category. With names like, 'bleeding-edge','beta','stable','2 generations back', or 'annually/biannually'. This could make manufactures more responsible and get the latest designs out of secret labs and into consumers hands quicker.
Customers can choose which category they want to be included in for different product families. So for example, I might choose the 'bleeding-edge' release cycle for my phone, but prefer a biannual subscription for a refrigerator or car.
And unless someone has a brand preference, the best products can be automatically chosen based on reviews from amazon and social networks and blogs and benchmarks on hardware/battery life/speed/etc
Discounts will be given for recycling your previous models, and as our 3d printing becomes better and closer to home, eventually we might just get 'ink' credits to print out phones, computers, cars, furniture, TV's etc.
On a side note, this kind of system would be the system of all systems and it would be hard for competitors to start (without the data owned by Amazon). So I don't think 'Amazon' should get to boast and claim this system as their own and keep the profits. I would like to see this type of system organized at the national level at first (until we fully embrace globalization) and we could vote on an open source 'shopping and distribution' system whose profits go back directly to the people in the countries they operate. Then people could join and accept a national system to be proud of, one whose contributors, ideas,transactions,money,etc are all open and viewable by anyone to encourage accountability.