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Very few owners of Alexa-powered devices use them for shopping
- dxxvi 8y agoIt's inconvenient to use Alexa for shopping, but I use it because returning is free for stuff bought through Alexa.
- zitterbewegung 8y agoI was an early adopter to Alexa. (I even made a skill called history facts). I have also purchased things with it . The things I have purchased are mainly consumables that I have purchased before. Note that even if you don’t buy anything from Alexa it gives you notifications if your packages are at the door .
- throwawaymath 8y ago> Note that even if you don’t buy anything from Alexa it gives you notifications if your packages are at the door . How do I enable that?! I've had four Echos since they were first released and I've never had them notify me of an Amazon package delivery.
- gh02t 8y agoThey added it a while back but I think it was default disabled. If you go to settings in the Alexa app->notifications->shopping notifications, the toggle is in there.
- cheeze 8y agoI've bought a few things as well, it was always a repeat item. Alexa, order more deoderant. She was able to figure out that I wanted the same deoderant that I've ordered the past 10 times.
- freetime2 8y agoI have not used Alexa, but in the past I have used Subscribe & Save to auto-order consumables. I found that even ordering consumables was a pain as products were constantly being discontinued in favor of a "new and improved" version (e.g. new packaging), or running out of stock, or the price would change drastically, etc. At the end of the day I probably spent more time worrying about and managing my subscriptions than if I just opened up my laptop or phone and placed a brand new order. As a price-conscious consumer I feel like I would have the same experience with Alexa. At least with Subscribe & Save the 15% discount made it almost worthwhile.
- Retra 8y agoLet me just hand my credit card to the car salesman and tell him "buy me a car." I mean, the only thing advertisers want more than your attention is the ability to make your purchases for you. People shouldn't buy things through Alexa because they shouldn't trust the people who made it. They made it to make a profit, and it'll do that or die trying. It's not there to make your life easier.
- stryk 8y agoI'd take it even one step further and say people shouldn't even have an Alexa (or Google Home, et. al.) in their home at all. There are so many downsides, and after you get past the "cool new technology" factor there are relatively little upsides. It would be better, more worthwhile, and a hell of a lot more interesting to research and figure out how to create your own "voice assistant" type of device that's hosted locally and doesn't transmit everything that's said in your home back to some company's servers. [and don't give me any of that 'they're not listening to everything' crap -- that's bullshit. if things can be abused they will be]
- sturgill 8y agoFirst world problems, but “Alexa, broadcast ‘dinner is ready’” is just amazing. Or, “Alexa, drop in on [child’s] room” to remind them about X. Also timers, light switches, and playing music to the surround sound from a Bluetooth connection to the receiver... We didn’t own one when we lived in Brooklyn, but they are all over my house in the suburbs. I don’t apologize for my love fest. But I won’t use it to order anything. Add something to lists? Definitely. Make a purchase decision? Ha!
- eropple 8y agoI really like my Echos, but yeah, I have never bought anything over it. It's the first thing I turned off and I've never missed it.
- gav 8y agoThe only time I ordered something with Alexa is when Amazon offered a $10 credit to do so. It's a terrible interface for one, but the biggest hurdle is that I really don't trust Amazon's pricing. Between add-on items, pantry, and third-party merchants, I always feel that I have to double check if I'm getting ripped off. I think a lot of this would be alleviated by better integration with the mobile app so I could go "Alexa, order AA batteries" and it would add to an order in progress, so that I could then verify the items later on and complete.
- grahamburger 8y agoYou can do this, just tried it to verify. "Alexa add ______ to my shopping cart."
- TeMPOraL 8y agoThat's a bit of a mouthful. And it's generally a problem with all those voice assistants.
- Klathmon 8y agoIt's like an extra word... It sounds like you just don't like voice assistants, which is fine but don't pretend that the words "shopping cart" are insurmountably larger than "buy".
- TeMPOraL 8y agoIt's not just an extra word. It's many extra syllables, when compared to: "Alexa, buy ___". I don't like existing voice assistants, but for different reasons - mainly related to being online-only, and not giving ability to add commands at top-level. I want to say "Alexa, X" instead of "Alexa, ask SomeCommercialBrand to do X", ad nauseam.
- vageli 8y agoExactly. With a real life (human) assistant, you don't need to be so explicit with delegation.
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- droopybuns 8y agoI put possible orders on my shopping list with Alexa. But I'm reluctant to trust it to order Aeropress filters or batteries at a reasonable cost.
- npunt 8y agoWhy make a habit of buying things in this method when you're always unsure of the price, and you're often unsure of the authenticity? The only use case that makes sense is I can see it being used for is reorders of brand-name consumables you've already vetted. But even when you trust you're getting a product actually made by Tide (or whomever), its unclear you're getting the exact match as a previous purchase - the brand may have decided to repackage it into something 6 ounces less than before. This happens a lot. Prices also tend to fluctuate quite a bit, enough that occasionally you'll get a price way outside normal range and would benefit from looking at other brands. Lots of room for error, and voice as a channel is too narrow to deliver an efficient experience that corrects for these issues. These are fixable by Amazon, but judging by what little policing there is on the authenticity of items, I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.
- Pxtl 8y agoNot just that, but every respectably large brand other than Apple will have fragmented their product into a zillion overlapping SKUs that will mean that ordering the correct product will require a list of qualifiers comparable to an elaborate Starbucks order. Alexa, I want the tide high-efficiency unscented cold-water large box of detergent please.
- vm 8y agoI was skeptical about buying through Alexa until I finally tried it. I found out that I value convenience more than detailed selection, at least for reorders and staple products (kitchen and bathroom soaps, etc).
- thomasfedb 8y agoIs it smart enough to know that "buy more soap" means to get the same soap you bought before?
- heavenlyblue 8y agoOr you could just buy 3 soaps every once a year and you wouldn’t need to speak to Alexa at all.
- jjeaff 8y agoI have an Alexa in every room of my house. But ordering things is too cumbersome by audio only. And even reordering is a no go. I need to see what I paid last time and compare a bit. I've found that a lot of items I might want to reorder can go way up in price. I think the vin diagram of Alexa owners and those with lots more money than time, that don't care about a good deal has little overlap.
- cgoecknerwald 8y agoIf you don't mine me asking, what do you use an Alexa in every room of the house for?
- psergeant 8y agoMine provide a stereo service and control my aircon and lights, housewide
- VLM 8y agoYou can enable a nice intercom feature if you want "Alexa call kitchen" She also makes clocks obsolete "what time is it" also arithmetic and spelling is near 100% accurate, although obviously very slow because of the speech UI. "Alexa what time is it in Brisbane?" "The time in Brisbane is 11:27 pm" uh OK I'll call client tomorrow.
- psergeant 8y agoIt’s been a bizarrely good talking point with dates who make it back to my place, too.
- jjeaff 8y agoControl the lights, thermostat, intercom system, playing music, ask the time, set a timer (especially helpful in the kitchen with sticky hands), ask the weather, wake up alarms, and on and on.
- slededit 8y agoThe people designing this are too wealthy to emphasize. People want to know what those Oreos will cost before buying. If they took panes to address the price anxiety there's no reason people won't start ordering from it. People were worried about freshness with produce delivery. Amazon tackled it head on by literally calling the service "Fresh". They're going to have to so something drastic here too.
- gkoberger 8y agoI don't think that's true. Bezos isn't sitting there designing Alexa from his gold-plated desk. Rather, I think Amazon realized they're a huge tech company that missed the lucrative phone game (despite trying with Amazon Fire). They realized they could be first to market with home automation, so they jumped on it. But they're still an online store, so they obviously had to include "buying stuff" as one of the main features. Basically, my point is: I don't think their premise ever was "the best way to order stuff is via voice", but rather "we need to let people order stuff since we're Amazon, and we're doing the best we can with the medium".
- flukus 8y ago> I don't think that's true. Bezos isn't sitting there designing Alexa from his gold-plated desk. No but the people that are working on Alexa (the engineers) are probably too wealthy to empathize as well, a poorly paid one is probably earning more than at least 80% of the population. They might have financial pressures of their own, but they're unlikely to care if the the oreos cost $2 or $3 today. Software Developers, particularly in Silicon Valley are out of touch with most of the world. Edit - Just to demonstrate, how much RAM would you say the average desktop has? If you said anything over 4GB you might be out of touch with most people even in a field you know: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/ https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/
- sigfubar 8y agoYou're getting downvoted because truth hurts.
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- sgillen 8y agoCan’t be too surprised, audio just doesn’t feel like a very good interface for browsing even a few different items for quality and price. Especially considering that just about everyone who has an Alexa also has a phone or computer that offers a much better and already learned and setup interface to do the same thing.
- anonytrary 8y agoSurprise, 99% of people aren't in the 1%. Jokes aside, all of the people I know who are in the 1% are the types of people who do at least a few minutes of research before buying things like Bose headphones. Do people actually order things like headphones on Alexa? I imagine something like "Oops, this isn't what I wanted, time to wait another few days for a better set" happening.
- CamelCaseName 8y agoI sell on Amazon and a huge issue I see is that my items frequently get their Alexa keyword changed. This is partly because I am not a leader in my niche, but it is frustrating because I cannot advertise the fact that you can order through Alexa. (My guess is the ROI would be negative, but it's something I want to test) This leads me to believe that you could say "Alexa, order diapers" today, and again 3 weeks from now, and get completely different brands, sizes, etc.
- icc97 8y agoI can't believe that someone would just trust Alexa to order 'diapers', at the very least you'd specify the brand and the size, "Alexa order pampers for a 10 kilo child".
- mrweasel 8y agoSomeone else mentioned USB cables and I don't think I would trust even that to Alexa. "Alexa. Order me the cheapest 1.5m USB cables which isn't of questionable quality, but keep it below $5."
- icc97 8y agoHere again I think brand is important, you order things without looking when you have confidence in the quality.
- yalogin 8y agoAmazon’s web site is its main drawback. They have way too many options with many different prices. I can’t just order a USB cable because I don’t know if it’s the best option or not. I have to look at, at least, a few of them to see if it’s a genuine one and some thing I want before I order. Something like that does not lend itself to be ordered on the voice interface.
- mrweasel 8y agoI was going to ask, I don't own any Alexa devices, so I was wondering about discoverability of products. Amazons product search is notoriously bad and subject to hijacking by creative sellers, so how is it even possible to order anything using Alexa?
- yalogin 8y agoUnrelated, but I don’t own Ann a Alexa or any of Aamzon’s Hardware because once Bezos tried to remove all security from their phones. Even though he reversed it later on it just shows you their thought process.
- justwalt 8y agoAny more info on this? I’ve tried finding articles but can’t seem to.
- yalogin 8y agoHere you go - https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/04/amazon-quietly-stopped-supporting-device-encryption-on-its-own-products/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-switch/wp/20...
- paulie_a 8y agoI will use a voice assistant to add items to a shopping list, but there is no way in hell I am using one to actually order things.
- jkaptur 8y agoIt took time for people to start buying things on their phones, too.
- gourneau 8y agoI have Google Home, and Alexa. To my girlfriend's great dismay I like to talk to my devices and tell them inane things. I once told them both that "I love my dog". Google Responded: We love dogs too woof woof! Amazon Responded: Would you like to buy dog food?
- moepstar 8y agoSiri responded: I don't understand what you mean..
- Johnny555 8y agoI tried that with my Echo, and it responded "Hmm...I don't know what you mean".... nothing about buying dog food. But I think you just didn't ask the response that the developers anticipated -- I asked "Alexa, do you like dogs?" and it responded "I don't have a dog, but if I did, I would name it Astro".
- mkirklions 8y agoI Have/Had Alexa, since been disconnected out of annoyance. We were using it entirely as a kitchen timer, but it would say things like "Sorry I didnt catch that" And that happened enough times that I felt like I didnt want it constantly listening. Annoying + creepy feeling. Now that Amazon is restricting items to Prime members, they have past the threshold of 'good company' to 'company'.
- packeted 8y agoNot very surprising, voice is a terrible interface for buying random products, even more so when you're talking to a dumb computer. It's what people used to have to do decades ago before e-commerce became widespread. That said I can see Alexa being used as a replacement for Amazon Dash style interactions for those who don't care to shop for price.
- chibg10 8y agoI had always assumed the default user behavior was to use Alexa to add things to your cart when you realized you ran out of e.g. paper towels. I've used it that way since I bought it and I've been satisfied so far with the convenience that my Echo adds. I wonder if they survey accounts for this. If not, seems like a misleading headline.
- icc97 8y agoThe "Alexa buy me expensive headphones" is a bit unfair towards Amazon. I'd guess the intended purchases are those where you know enough about the product that you don't need to look. So if you order a certain brand of coffee or toilet paper regularly, you can order those without being too concerned. Things that you realise you're out of when walking around the house and want to re-order them before you forget.
- ronreiter 8y agoLike with everything, I would be very careful and jumping to conclusions from a TechCrunch article on new initiatives. Behavior patterns don't just suddenly start. It needs work, market education, etc.
- mcintyre1994 8y agoI'd probably occasionally use it if I could say order me xyz and it'd order the exact same xyz I bought last time, warning me of any price change and asking me to confirm if it's increased. I'm guessing it's about as consistent as an Amazon search though, so I have no trust that it'll do that.
- cm2187 8y agoI am not sold on voice recognitions UI. Not self discoverable. Also very unreliable. It’s funny to watch Leo Laporte and his colleagues on twit.tv triggering their devices by mistake all the time, or having to repeat pretty much all their commands at least twice. These are podcast professionals with a crystal clear diction in a sound proof studio. If it doesn’t work reliably for them, try with a strong spanish or french accent or anyone who doesn’t articulate perfectly. If you had to make several attempts every time you want to switch on the lights with a button, it would make anyone mad. I don’t understand the success of these devices (if there is success indeed, never sure with the hype).
- grkvlt 8y agoOf course, and that's why you don't have to make several attempts each time you want to turn on the lights. Sure, sometimes it misunderstands you, but the error rate is similar to that of normal conversation. I never thought I'd like voice control until I got an Echo Dot, but now I'm 100% sold. Of course I don't buy things with it, but I don't buy that much with Amazon anyway...
- dreamcompiler 8y ago50 million Alexa users. Wow. I remain astonished that so many people would choose to install an always-on, cloud-connected listening device in their most private spaces, with utterly no accountability or auditability. Especially since there's no technical reason for speech recognition to require cloud connectivity.
- lazyjones 8y ago> I remain astonished that so many people would choose to install an always-on, cloud-connected listening device in their most private spaces, with utterly no accountability or auditability. You mean after their smartphones and smart TVs and after putting many years’ worth of intimate details on FB despite all the discussions of Zuckerbergs attitude towards privacy? It doesn‘t surprise me at all.
- raxxorrax 8y agoI have 4 different Alexa devices on 2 different accounts. Developed an IoT-Solution for some devices. Was really fun and I really liked developing against Alexa. Amazon also has some neat solutions for user management and overall AWS services are pretty extensive. Would recommend. That said, I never ever would use Alexa or Alexa-capable devices at home and I doubt many users will use the IoT-functions of the devices in question. It is mostly for marketing to have a voice-interface. But the development was still very fun. > Especially since there's no technical reason for speech recognition to require cloud connectivity Never opened the boxes but I think Alexa devices are cheap w-lan capable microphones with very basic speakers and software. Having a lot of samples definitely helps for voice recognition. And you need some processing power, additionally to as much memory as you can press into that box.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoThe kind of processing power needed for good-enough speaker-independent recognition at home has been cheap for several years. For speaker-dependent recognition, it's been cheap for decades. Amazon, Google, and Apple like to sell the myth that the cloud is necessary (because processing power!) but it's simply not so. The real reason they say these things is to get your data.
- vivan 8y agoI don't trust a "smart" device to spend my money. The first thing I do when I get a new Echo is disable the ability to make purchases.
- slantaclaus 8y agoYeah because it only allows Amazon pantry/fresh for a lot of stuff and adds the most expensive items it can find to my shopping cart
- deegles 8y agoI think the real news here is that 50 million devices number... shopping with Alexa can only go up if you have a device first.
- jerf 8y agoIt says 50 million "users". I'd be curious how that's counted. 50 million dedicated Alexa devices in current use would definitely be something. But I've got 3 non-dedicated devices that I nominally could use Alexa on, but they're all off. Are they counting me as a user, or possibly three users? Because I'm not. (I don't want a voice assistant anyhow, but the devices in question are two tablets and an Android phone with the Amazon shopping app. I'm not sure how "Alexa-y" the latter is, I've never fully experimented with it. Hitting the microphone icon says I can order things.)
- rickyc091 8y agoWhile I don't ordinarily use Alexa for shopping purposes, I use Alexa on my Amazon Dash for groceries all the time. The dash is magnetized onto my fridge so while I'm cooking, I'll hold onto the record button and add some items to my shopping list. I was down to my last egg just yesterday, so I said "eggs" to Alexa, and it automatically got added to my Amazon shopping cart. The dash also has a feature that allows you to scan the barcode and add it to your cart which I've found useful for replenishing commonly purchased items.
- something2332 8y agoAlexa, buy toilet paper. Yeah, you're not going to buy a computer via Alexa but for everyday items, it is fine.
- ppeetteerr 8y agoI'm always suspicious of companies simplifying the process of buying luxury goods and services (snacks, headphones, gadgets, boxes, etc). Glad to see that despite Amazon's greatest effort, most people are sensible enough not to order from an e-commerce speaker.
- VLM 8y agoNarowcasting to the rich child-free urban hipster segment. First thing I did was disable voice ordering, or my kids would have ordered 75 xbox consoles by now. Its worth considering that buying an echo doesn't necessarily show up in toilet paper sales; it might show up in amazon music, or audible audiobooks. My amazon music purchases went from zero to a very small amount. Alexa does audiobook reading better than my phone apps, and obviously doesn't drain my phone battery. I've spent more on audiobooks than I have on echo dots.
- 2sk21 8y agoGood point - until it can distinguish voices, this is potential problem.
- gervase 8y agoIt has been able to do this for some time. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/amazon-echo-multi-user-voice-new-feature https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/...
- twothamendment 8y agoI use echos all the time and order from Amazon all the time. Those are almost complete separate. Twice those paths crossed, but only because Amazon did something crazy like sell a box of Cliff bars for half what Costco does. They got me to try ordering by voice, but I can't see myself doing that again until they sell me some more stuff at cost and ship it free.
- jasonhong 8y agoFYI, we recently published a study of how people use their Alexa, based on interviews with 7 families and an analysis of log data from 75 participants. Here's a link to the paper (PDF): http://www.cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/192/hey_alexa_what_s_up_studies_of_in_home_conversational_agent_usage.pdf http://www.cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/192/hey_a... One thing that really surprised me when we did this work is that people actually own more than one Alexa device. One family we interviewed had 7 devices, though they used it primarily for controlling lights and asking the time. The number one command from the logs was "Alexa stop". The number two was "Alexa". Number three was "stop". Like the original posted article, we also saw very little use of shopping. The funniest story we heard (which didn't make it into the paper) was how one family used Alexa as a timer for their children, for timeouts. A parent might say "Alexa, set timer for 5 minutes". One time, once the parent left, the kid said "Alexa, set time for 1 minute."
- PascLeRasc 8y agoInteresting! Will you be continuing the research and comparing Alexa use to Siri/Google Home+Assistant? And do you personally think CUIs are good or bad for children to grow up talking with? (I'm at CMU and I'm a GHome user if you need subjects!)
- PaulHoule 8y agoI only shopped with Alexa once because there was a special deal if I did. What I do find helpful is that Alexa notifies me when my orders are delivered. Often UPS leaves packages at the other end of my long driveway, and near-immediate notification means I go out there and get them before they get lost, stolen, covered in snow, etc.
- jfasi 8y agoAs someone who works in ads, I'm not sure this is such a bad thing. CTRs and conversion rates in the low single digits can be significant businesses at scale. Search ads, display ads, and mobile phone games all run on minuscule conversion rates and yet drive huge revenues off of a combination of a large number of interactions and a head of users who purchase a disproportionate portion of revenue. Also, consider the converse of this: 98 percent of users use Alexa for something other than traditional shopping. That's huge! Playing music? That's revenue. Playing a movie? That's revenue. Asking a question? That's traffic not being sent to a traditional search engine. Also don't discount the value of having a toehold in someone's home. At the end of the day, this isn't a shopping play, this is a platform play. That device can be leveraged to sell new products, push new services, and enhance loyalty to the Amazon brand and ecosystem.