Amazon began offering some customers the ability to text its AI shopping assistant, Alexa for Shopping, to find products, build shopping carts, and complete purchases. Sponsored products can also show up in the replies Alexa texts back, obviously, because it’s Amazon, which only launches new shopping channels if it can create new real estate for its ads. However, Amazon isn’t charging advertisers for those placements yet, according to Digiday.
The feature is initially only available to a small group of US customers by invitation, but Amazon said it will expand the option to more shoppers during the holiday season ahead.
Great, but why?
How is that any easier than shopping through the Amazon app on a phone? Or am I just the only person who hates texting?
Rajiv Mehta, Amazon’s VP of Conversational Shopping, said:
“Customers often jot down what they need the moment they think of it in their notes, in their messages, in their group chats. Now with Alexa for Shopping, your personal shopping agent is just a text away. Message it what you need, and Alexa goes to work on your behalf—searching, comparing, and buying so you can get on with your day.”
Ah yeah, okay, that makes sense. I’m sold! However, I hope they bring it to WhatsApp too because that’s where most of my texting happens nowadays.
Here’s what else texting Alexa can do:
- Text your to-do list for Alexa to get to work on, such as “I’m currently on the toilet and out of toilet paper, I need a very cheap birthday gift for my wife’s sister (but one that looks expensive), and we’re low on dog food.”
- Set up a weekly grocery order or text a photo of a recipe to add all the ingredients to your cart.
- Reorder household products like laundry detergent or aluminum foil, based on your orders from previous months.
- Personalize your shopping experience, such as telling Alexa to add items to your cart automatically or only show organic options.
- Send a photo of something you discover in the wild and Alexa will find a similar product on Amazon.
- Check on existing orders to learn when they shipped or when they will arrive.
- Get notified about new releases, when products are back in stock, or when an item hits your price target.
- Just be sure to save the assistant as “Alexa” in your contacts, and not “Sweetie ❤️” so your wife doesn’t question who you’re texting all day!
Does Walmart offer shopping by text?
Yes, for a while now. Walmart launched Text to Shop publicly on December 14, 2022, after running it for a year as an invite-only beta. Before that, Walmart tried a $600/year text concierge called Jetblack in New York in 2018. (Aww, isn’t that cute that people were willing to pay for the privilege of shopping by text back then?)
Would you use Alexa’s new text-to-shop feature? Or are you too old and wish instead that Amazon had a 1-800 number you could call to talk with a real live person to do your shopping? Because that’s probably coming too, minus the “real live person” and plus an “AI voice chatbot.”
