Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has plans to continue expanding its presence in brick and mortar retail. The firm has a patent which it plans to use to prevent comparison shopping at stores according to The Washington Post.
According to the Post, Amazon’s new patent dated May 30 reportedly contains details of how the company plans to prevent comparison shopping at its physical stores. This seems ironic for the online retail giant considering that customers have been using its online retail platform for the longest time to carry out price comparison while at rival brick and mortar stores.
The new patent to institute measures to prevent price comparison
Details of the patent were written in the Post which happens to be owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The company reportedly wants to employ a method of blocking, controlling or redirecting customers’ efforts to compare the prices of products in the stores by visiting rival websites on their handsets. Customers usually do this while connected to the Wi-Fi network in the stores.
The system described in the patent will able to detect when a customer is trying to visit a rival retail website. Not only will the system block the user, it will also have the capacity to present coupons to the customer so as to distract them or even redirect them to the company’s website. Amazon has established that comparison shopping has been presenting itself as a huge threat to the brick and mortar retail business. Numerous traditional retailers have experienced a significant decline in their business due to this phenomenon.
Amazon was awarded the new patent called “Physical Store Online Shopping Control,” on May 30. While the company plans to use the patent to solve the problem, it will not be of much help if shoppers carry out the comparison shopping on their cellular networks. Amazon will thus have to come up with other competitive measures such as offering very competitive pricing to attract customers to its brick and mortar stores.
Amazon stock closed the latest trading session on Friday at $987.71 after a 2.44 percent gain compared to the previous close.
