Subscribe via RSS FeedAmazon M-Commerce: Introducing Text-Buy-It
Amazon is testing new waters in mobile marketing with its Text-Buy-It technology launched earlier this week. The new service allows customers to check prices from their cell-phone completely through text messaging - bypassing the need to access the mobile web (many people still don’t have web access or incur extra costs per web page viewed). Most if not all phones are text-ready and in general it’s not complicated to figure out.
Since Amazon undersells most brick-and-mortar retailers and is aggressively expanding its product line (including wines), physical stores could turn into local showrooms for Amazon’s inventory - only to help push customers towards an Amazon conversion.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Text a product name, search keyword, UPC code or ISBN number to “AMAZON” (262966)
Step 2: Amazon sends back a numbered list of products and prices matching your search
Step 3: If you find the item you want in stock and at a favorable price you can click the number beside the result to buy
Step 4: Amazon calls (not texts) you back with final details of your order
Step 5: You confirm or cancel your purchase, provide an email address and select a preferred shipping speed
While customers can’t access features that makes Amazon famous like customer reviews and cross-sell suggestions, this is likely going to be a very popular service that could really nail local retailers - the country is in a recession, businesses are already feeling the pinch and customers are more price sensitive.
No word on super-saver shipping options for multiple purchases or if purchases made within a certain time period can be combined.
We can thank Amazon for pioneering many innovations in ecommerce and now mobile commerce. This is certainly an exciting development for discount retailers like Overstock who could develop similar services. It could also work well for etailers that sell items carried by other retailers and can’t compete on price, but have earned loyal and passionate customers through rewards programs, great service or word-of-mouth (Zappos is a good example).
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I think this is great for checking prices while out and about to make sure you aren’t getting ripped off when you buy something at a brick and motor store. But I’m not sure that I would follow through with the purchase right then and there.
To me it just makes more sense to wait till you get home and place the order on the website.
Just my opinion.
Here’s a nice review of the service from Whitney Hess, complete with screenshots
http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2008/04/text-message-your-order-to-amazon/
This is pretty awesome (moreso for Amazon, not-so-much for brick-and-mortar retailers).
Amazon’s actually been pushing the mobile initiative for a while now. Back in 2004, they introduced “Amazon Scan Service” in Japan, allowing consumers to take a picture of a product’s barcode with their cellphone camera, send that barcode to Amazon, get the product details, and then have the option of purchasing said item - http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/amazon-japan-cell-phone-fancypants-service-026198.php
And now, they’ve developed new 2-dimension barcodes that mobile phones can decrypt on their own - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/business/01code.html?ex=1333080000&en=8bb1180541c7a895&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
“In Japan, some highway billboards have codes large enough for passing motorists to read them with their phones. Hospitals put them on prescriptions, allowing pharmacies to instantly scan the medical information rather than read it. Supermarkets stick them on meat and egg packaging to give expiration dates and even the names of the farmers who produced them.
One of the most popular uses in Japan has been paperless airline tickets. About 10 percent of the people who take domestic flights of All Nippon Airways now use the codes on their cellphones instead of printed tickets.
Yasuko Nishigai, 22, used her cellphone recently to buy a ticket from Tokyo to the Japanese tropical island of Okinawa. To board her flight, she waved the code on her cellphone screen over a scanner.
“I didn’t use a single piece of paper, just my phone,” she said.”
Pretty exciting :)
I think this is an exciting development, but I can’t help thinking it would be better used for products other than books. Whilst it would be convenient to order books that way, I would have thought that most people could wait until they were at a computer to order one. Using it for things airline tickets seems a lot more logical to me - it would make this a lot more convenient!