For many products, you want to do at least some research before ordering. For products you order regularly, reordering is usually only a couple of clicks/taps.
I think the goal from Amazon's point of view is to be the middle man in as many transactions as possible and to abstract away the payment from the acquisition of the product or service. The more you can abstract the payment, the more money people will spend. Like with credit cards versus cash:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/your-money/credit-cards-en...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201001...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/retail-therapy/201306/w...
It's undeniably easier to ask Alexa to order it, for repeat orders at least e.g. the dish soap example.
I WANT the check out process, I WANT to verify my address, payment method, I want to confirm my order qty, shipping costs, and other items.
I am baffled by this trend to simply speak into the air and have a computer order anything with out limit based on what the computer thinks I said.
It has the most users at level 3 proficiency, but almost twice the amount of people who aren't able to use computers at all, compared to, say, USA.
Have you ever seen someone talk to a PC from across the room? Is there any popular PC voice software that is "always on" and doesn't get itself into bad states? ("dragondictate.exe has stopped")
I personally have taken 100's of pictures of Windows dialog boxes on giant advertising/airport displays. If people who are paid big bucks to manage a display can't keep it running flawlessly, how will someone who has bad motor skills and bad eyesight?
I'm not saying Alexa is more useful than a PC. But I am saying that Alexa is zero maintenance, and a PC is not. It's the same reason Chromebooks outsell laptops -- it's not that they do more than laptops, but what they can do, chromebooks do "better".
I do think Alexia is great for several things, but shopping for example benefits from more feedback.
By removing all friction and letting people order something exactly when they think of it, I suspect they will make many more sales.
I'd expect a tiny reduction in difficulty of ordering something (especially while making it harder to be sure what something you're ordering) wouldn't help much. What I would expect to matter, is how easy the entire process is compared to at other stores.
Unless they're just counting on preying on poorly-thought-out impulse buys?
Other than that is pretty much novelty like you said.
(Both deliver products similar to peapod)
If I could use voice to add to my list and/or order that wouldn't happen.
But most of this stuff is things I don't get from Amazon and, if I did, I'd want to check quantities, pricing, etc. For certain types of goods you might want to batch things up an use Amazon Pantry.
pre-Echo I've been using Evernote for this. I haven't had a chance to try out any of the alexa enabled things but OurGroceries looks to be about what I want.
"Hey Siri, add toothpaste to the shopping list" throws it onto a Reminders list that's shared with my wife, so whoever happens to be at the store next always has an up-to-date list. It's shockingly convenient.
Now, if only Siri were smart enough to let me add multiple items in one go...
Agreed on the 2FA bit though; would love a good authenticator app with Watch support.
In my case, there's a Walmart I can drive to in about 5 minutes so stocking up on paper towels and dishwashing detergent every few months (and/or when I'm at the grocery store anyway) is pretty easy.
how many doll houses is a person willing to return in order to make their soap purchase easier?
It's also a great way to practice your speaking ability. Really trains your enunciation.
Amazon needs to develop a biz model for skills that makes sense though.
It's definitely meant more as a replacement for a shopping list than it is a way to, say, do your Christmas shopping.
The quality of many top Amazon results is often not accurately portrayed with all the fake comments, swapped products, etc. plus, with the various seller and shipping options, I frankly don't trust Amazon to pick the best product and options for me.
Every year it's a stressful and unhappy affair for our small family since so many relatives expect something.
It isn't always cookies, but generally food. The weirdest thing I found is that folks wound up looking forward to my gift, even though they know what I give them. The main downside is that it takes some work, a bit of freezer space, and some planning.
They have all the food they will ever eat for the rest of their lives ?
My unsolicited advice is buy the equipment for making chutney / jam / pickle/ candied fruit / dried fruit etc. and give everybody a container of that with a pretty label their name & your name on.
And don't forget pickling in vinegar - cabbage, chillies, garlic, carrots, beans the list is almost endless.
Like so many things, what used to be a peasant essential has become an artisan treat.
Is that a realistic scenario for the majority though?
Aren't most people going to either make a mental note and add it to the shopping list later, or just wash/wipe hands and add a note to the list on the fridge blotter/whiteboard etc.
It'll be a sad reflection on the evolution of cognitive thinking if the people believe that they have to drop everything, clean up and reorder cornflour the instant they run out.
> grabbing your phone, loading the app, searching for the product, and hitting "buy".
Considering that, as well as the other option of having a magical listening tube in the house, living in a small English village, I have the 'luxury' of grabbing my coat and walking about 400M to the local store, and apart from the minor health benefit, I could also stretch the operation into a dog walking session, bump into and talk to some friends on the way and get some fresh air. There's also the local pub (http://the-quaffer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/murrell-arms-barnh...). Alexa, pull me a pint of London Pride...
When used this way it's a minor extension of a shopping list that gets automatically fulfilled.
Are you really gonna argue that it's a "sad reflection on the evolution of cognitive thinking" to re-order something right when you realize you need it rather than making a mental note, possibly forgetting it next time you are at the store, the store maybe being out, and then having to lug this shit around yourself?
It's a convince. I personally use it for cat litter all the time. I get it from Amazon anyway cause they have the best price for it, and when I realize it's running low I tell the Alexa to order more of it. And that sure as hell beats the alternative of driving 20 minutes to the grocery store that has this cat litter at some point in the future before I run out (not everyone lives 400m away from a store that sells everything)
It's not the end of the world.
However, it is one of those small changes that shift society's rules of engagement very slightly. The teenagers I teach already order stuff from their phones, and discover music &c entirely through online media. I live near the centre of a large city in the UK and when I'm popping the 50m to the corner shop for more salt or haldi, I have to dodge the swarms Deliveroo bicyclists. Every takeway has the Just Eat sticker and all the radio cars have Uber on the side as well as the local taxi company.
There is a shift in the details of daily living.
The automobile. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Stoves and vacuum cleaners. Television, radio. The wheel - but more importantly, the axle. Heck, hand washing shifted some details of life.
It seems very natural for us to move forward and change this stuff. Is some of it necessary? No, but that's just what humans do to an extent.
Maths example: place notation and Arabic numerals made adding and subtracting very easy (you try adding numbers in roman numerals without translating) but we lost insight into ratio and proportionality concepts. That was around 1200 or so in Europe.
This isn't anywhere near a grand shift - it's a clever commercial ploy to increase profits for a narrow range of businesses.
> The automobile. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Stoves and vacuum cleaners. Television, radio. The wheel - but more importantly, the axle.
Sure, THEY were grand shifts that improved health, sanitation, freed up significant amounts of travel or labour time, brought education and entertainment to the masses etc.
How do we classify Alex's contribution to society: "I can speak some words and receive cat litter the next day".
OK, I jest - the AI behind Alexa will no doubt reap other benefits in time, some may even be societal rather than commercial.
Don't get me wrong; I love gadgets and innovation - I work for an Enterprise Class storage manufacturer and spend all day working with terabyte/petabyte-scale disk and flash array setups, and stuff I can't even tell you about - but let's have some perspective here!
this happens every generation.
the very things that some of us miss as "details shift" (like books) were the reason for the moral panic when first introduced.
http://www.historytoday.com/frank-furedi/media%E2%80%99s-fir...
I see you aren't a cat owner. One of our cats is pretty consistent but the other varies wildly both in her eating and pooping habits. One day the litter box is barely in need of scooping, the next you have to scoop twice throughout the day. This has caused us to have to buy a bag of litter in the middle of the week on more than one occasion.
There are times I would remember to get more when I'm running low, there are times I'd forget and I'd have to run out at 1am to the 24/7 supermarket because I feel so bad for forgetting and I know how much the cat hates when her litter is low.
In the past I would have multiple boxes stacked up and would try to reorder when I was down to one, but even then I'd forget, and storing multiple boxes of cat litter is annoying in our small condo.
This is a great solution to me. And before this I had a DIY button made with a raspberry pi that would do it for me that I put near the cat litter. IMO this is a better UX.
But I've found it's just not that consistent for it to work in some of these cases.
I sometimes order 2 boxes of litter a month, and sometimes don't order any.
Now if you are talking about something which will measure how much I have left via a scale or some other method and reorder when I'm low, I'd love that! I'll need to see if I can grab another ESP8266 and some load sensors and set that up!
Damn, we really are living in the future the 1950s imagined we would.
For repeat orders, for small orders, for ordering a taxi, for ordering a repair man, for ordering specific things("i want the same earphones as my friend"), a voice chat may be useful. People don't want to research everything.
Or what if Amazon build a voice personality that people really like, and by extention, really enjoy getting help from when buying stuff ?
Furthermore, it's a bet. It wasn't so clear, at the advent of mobile, that so much ecommerce will happen there, instead of the big screen. but it did. People changed their habits. It's also not clear with voice, but it's hard to tell.
I'd probably use it for common household stuff if I didn't just buy that at the store. But I know a lot of people who buy cleaning supplies, cooking supplies etc on Amazon.