Was just thinking, if the click takes you to a page with a countdown timer and a big cancel button, and the page then makes the purchase at the end of the countdown, with the timer length being part of the user account settings, as long as the timer is not zero, that is not presumably a one click purchase, under the terms of the one click patent, as it is not a single action by the customer that purchases the product.
Also, it would be nice anyway to have an adjustable brief cooling off timer on an order, so is a nice implementation idea regardless of the one click patent.
I have no idea. In any case, Jobs never would have allowed it. The iTunes Store has the optimal purchasing process that happened to be covered by Amazon’s patent. They took the cheap way out. That same UX morphed into the AppStore after the iPhone. Then it made its way into the Apple TV.
Everyone has it now. I wonder if they got as good a deal as Apple did. We all expected someone big to fight that patent. Apple basically said “f- this” and took the easy way out even if it meant everyone else would get screwed. One of the few times Apple had first mover advantage.
Jobs wouldn't have allowed it because it is something that would at first glance reduce purchases, as it allows people to back out immediately if they click buy.
As far as design patterns for purchasing go, I would say it is probably more optimal than a simple one-click, if optimising for both the buyer and seller's interests. One-click is more optimal if you are only optimising for the seller.
> Also, it would be nice anyway to have an adjustable brief cooling off timer on an order, so is a nice implementation idea regardless of the one click patent.
As a rule of thumb, people trying to sell you a thing are unlikely to give you extra time past the "I need to buy this" impulse to decide not to buy it.
>people trying to sell you a thing are unlikely to give you extra time past the "I need to buy this" impulse to decide not to buy it
In the EU, the consumer has the right to cancel any order or return any purchase, for any reason, within 14 days.
So in the EU, you already have that extra time in law.
Given that, from a retailers perspective, having a timer could actually make commercial sense, as the cost from lost sales could be balanced out by a reduction in cancelled orders and returns.
It may make commercial sense anyway, out of customers liking the feature and that translating into goodwill over time, but that would be much harder to put a figure on.
I really do wonder what the cost/benefit numbers are for a company putting more friction on their return/refund process while adding to the processing cost.
I'm sure I've made plenty of purchases where a big ticking "Are you sure you wanted to do that, Dave?" undo button might have worked but it wasn't worth it for me to go through the effort to return or refund.
Also, it would be nice anyway to have an adjustable brief cooling off timer on an order, so is a nice implementation idea regardless of the one click patent.