Amazon is Pushing Its Print On Demand Service To Limit Out Of Stock

We have previously discussed on this blog how bad out of stock could be for a retailer. Even though stocks could be pricy and have a deep impact on retailers results, out of stock creates customer insatisfaction  and missed sales.

Amazon is pushing its Print On Demand Service. The concept is simple. If a book is missing in the stocks of Amazon, instead of missing the sale, Amazon is printing the document once the customer has paid the document, and will deliver it at no extra costs, following the same terms.

Now, will Amazon push this system to print on demand a large part of its book offer? I am not so sure. I believe it will still remain more costly to print on demand than to stock books.

This is an interesting case study where technology allows Amazon to be more efficient to respond to customers demand.