Graciously accepting ill-suited gifts and slyly exchanging or re-gifting these unwanted articles may become antiquated formalities of the past. In November, Amazon received a patent for a System and Method For Converting Gifts, US Patent No. 7,831,439 (issued Nov. 9, 2010). Amazon explains in their patent application that “as in other gift-giving situations, it sometimes occurs that gifts purchased on-line do not meet the needs or tastes of the gift recipient who may already have the item and may not need another of the same item [and] wish to convert the gift into something else, for example, by exchanging the gift for another item or by obtaining a redemption coupon, gift card, or other gift certificate to be redeemed later.”
The recipients can choose to exercise their own discretion in determining whether to invoke a preemptive gift swap or, alternatively, rely on an automated process by delegating the decision to an algorithm which determines when a substitution is necessary. Figure 7 of the patent illustrates how a user may use the product recommendation capabilities of Amazon’s website to facilitate gift conversion decisions. Additionally, this system enables the recipient to automatically replace gifts sent from specified individuals.
While gift-giving purists may object to recipients seemingly hijacking a gift-giving process, Amazon spins the purpose of its system away from the selfish inclinations of recipients and frames the system’s utility in terms of the gift sender who can enjoy more creative latitude with gift-exchanges serving as a safety net for good intentions gone awry:
“[C]oncern that the recipient may not like a particular gift may cause the person sending the gift to be more cautious in gift selection. The person sending the gift may be less likely to take a chance on a gift that is unexpected but that the recipient might truly enjoy, opting instead of a gift that is somewhat more predictable but less likely to be converted into something else. If the sender does decide to send the more unexpected gift, the sender may offer words of encouragement to the recipient (e.g. instructing the recipient to “feel free to exchange it if you don’t like it”).”
Additionally, others have identified potential economic benefit of gift optimization through reducing the volume of shipped goods, as unwanted gifts would be preemptively rejected rather than leaving the warehouse only to be shipped back and exchanged. While this scheme may mark the beginning of a shift in the sender-recipient dynamic in online shopping, Amazon has not indicated how much progress has been made in implementing this system, nor has a final date been established for its availability to Amazon users.