Only a small percentage of users buys stuff through Alexa, report claims

People aren't really understanding Amazon's strategy. Amazon is playing the long game. Right now they are getting their foothold into people's homes with echo and Alexa. In time they will refine the process. I see a future where they have a visual part to ordering-- similar to an echo show.

As it stands now, digital goods are more practical to use with the echo. Example, I never used prime music until I got my echo. My Audible books were all played on my phone-- now I listen to them on my echo. It definitely gives me one more reason to stay with prime and buy more audiobooks.

Google's Android didn't bring much sales to Google early on. Now it brings in billions. It's too early to judge the echo's impact on Amazon's sales.

For me, voice doesn't work well for shopping. I love Alexa/Echo and I have a dozen devices mainly for home automation and general questions (weather, lookup). But for shopping, I want to find the best product and look up the cheapest price before buying. I'm afraid of what might happen if I said "Alexa buy a 128GB microsd card" because they range from $8 to $50 and I don't know which one Amazon would pick. The items mentioned in the article as common voice repeat purchases I already have set up as subscriptions (e.g. pool chemicals, shampoo).

There are still a few ways to do the auditory equivalent of fat-fingering commands with Alexa. It can get frustratingly far (and even more confused) when it is starting the wrong thing and you try to stop it.

As I see it, turning on “purchases” is a sure-fire way to accidentally order stuff every time I make a noise. Turned it all off.