Amazon looks to ship it before you click it

When it comes to the shipping and e-commerce industries, Amazon has announced some of the more intriguing ventures in recent memory. At the start of December, CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled plans to use drones for local urban shipping of small packages. This is an idea that has been tossed around several markets, but FAA regulations will keep them sidelined for some time.

The latest announcement has more of an impact on consumers and the logistics side of the business. According to several news sites, the company has been granted a patent it applied for back in August 2012. It details a plan for "Anticipatory Package Shipping."

Essentially, this is a way for organizations to predict what consumers are going to buy and have it shipped to distribution centers before the order is even placed. If you have a favorite pizza joint, for example, this would be the restaurant knowing that at 5 p.m. every Friday you place the same order and having it in the oven before you call to place it.

"The patent also goes on to discuss in detail various scenarios for 'speculatively shipping' packages to destinations and how to re-route items based on proximity to potential customers —  and even how packages might remain in near continuous transit on trucks until a customer makes a purchase," a TechCrunch article reads.

This would be a major step in the logistics industry as it would change e-commerce. Businesses will need to have a complete shipping and logistics solution in place to be able to manage such a system.