Amazon patent seeks to protect its physical stores from online competition
Amazon might prefer that you not comparison-shop online when you are in one of its physical stores. The company, which is acquiring Whole Foods, has received a patent that would let it prevent a customer in one of its brick-and-mortar stores from accessing a competitor’s website—a phenomenon known as mobile window shopping—when connected to the Amazon establishment’s Wi-Fi, according to Brian Fung at The Washington Post.
Pity the poor beleaguered Amazon brick-and-mortar store. The patent itself, titled “Physical Store Online Shopping Control,” describes the sad situation: “…a negative scenario may exist for a physical store retailer when a consumer evaluates items at the physical store, leverages physical store sales representatives, and then reviews pricing information online in order to purchase the same item from an online retailer. The physical store retailer pays for floor space, sales representative time, product inventory management, and other costs while not being able to complete a sales transaction.”
This excerpt brings a couple of thoughts to mind. First, this is patentable?
And second, it’s rich to see Amazon trying to mount a defensive action against the depredations online retailers can visit on brick-and-mortar stores.
Fung in the Post notes that on detecting a customer’s effort to access a competitor’s website, Amazon could simply block access, assign a sales person to approach the customer, or send the customer a coupon.
Fung writes, “Just because a company wins a patent doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll use it.” And of course there’s a simple workaround for the savvy consumer. Just don’t connect to Amazon’s Wi-Fi.
