What just happened
Six separate facts were pulled out of one ordinary email and turned into structured records — a tracked shipment and a warranty file, linked to each other and to the product.
- Merchant and order number, so multi-parcel orders group as one purchase rather than three unrelated boxes.
- Item and price, which become the proof-of-purchase record a warranty claim needs.
- Carrier and tracking number, identified by format — see how to read a tracking number for the patterns involved.
- Warranty term, converted into an actual expiry date and a reminder.
- The attached terms PDF, saved as it existed on the day of purchase — because manufacturers revise terms, and the version in force when you bought is the one that governs.
Why detection rather than integration
The obvious alternative is to integrate with every retailer's API. That doesn't scale: there are millions of merchants and no shared standard, and the small independent shops you actually want covered would never be supported.
Confirmation emails, by contrast, are close to universal. Every merchant sends one, and they contain the same handful of facts in wildly different layouts. Reading them is the only approach with a realistic path to covering everything you buy.
The trust question, stated plainly
This feature requires read access to your mail, and that is not a small thing to ask. Our intended position: parse locally in the browser wherever technically possible, extract only order-related fields, never sell or broker the data, and publish the full technical detail before launch so it can be checked rather than trusted. If we can't hold that line, the feature isn't worth shipping.