The next step for Amazon seems to be to ship you the products you want before you even buy them.

Recently Amazon acquired a patent known as “anticipatory shipping” and they believe that it will help them cut down on delivery time by shipping products to their hubs or trucks before a person has bought them. Based on the information gathered from Amazon profiles, they will ship products they believe will sell in a given area, though the idea that some people may receive items they didn’t order has been raised.

But, being Amazon, they have a plan even for unwanted deliveries. In the patent, they describe using such scenarios to their advantage by claiming that the unwanted product is a gift. “Delivering the package to the given customer as a promotional gift may be used to build goodwill,” it states in the patent.

While they only just received the patent in December and it will take some time to put it into practice, it will be interesting to see how it plays out for Amazon. I hope I get an iPad as a promotional gift soon.

[via The Verge, The Wall Street Journal, image via Aurelijus Valeisa’s flickr]