NEW YORK — In the name of convenience, Amazon and Walmart
are pushing people to shop by just talking to a digital assistant.
Shopping by voice means giving orders to the Alexa assistant
on Amazon's Echo speaker and other devices, even if your hands are tied up with
dinner or dirty diapers. And next month, Walmart will start offering voice
shopping, too, with the Google Assistant on the rival Home speaker.
Voice shopping is still new. But once you start using it,
look out — you might never know if it's offering you the best deal. Because
these devices can't say much without tiring your ears, voice shopping precludes
some of the savvy shopping practices you may have relied on to find the best
bargains — in particular, researching products and comparing prices.
You'd be leaving much of the buying decision to Amazon,
Walmart or other retailers.
Hooked on Amazon
Amazon has had more than a year's head start, and dominates
voice shopping. Google introduced shopping to Home in February, letting people
order essentials from more than 40 retailers like Target and Costco under its
Google Express program. Its partnership with Walmart means hundreds of
thousands of items will be available to customers in late September.
With websites and apps, many customers place items in the
cart, but change their minds before completing the order, said Lauren
Beitelspacher, a marketing professor at Babson College in Massachusetts. Voice
shopping eliminates those intervening steps.
And with Amazon so far ahead, voice shopping with Alexa is
another way of getting you hooked on Amazon. Although Amazon allows some
third-party ordering through Alexa, including pizza from Domino's and hotels
through Kayak, general shopping is limited to Amazon's own store. If Alexa
orders diapers for you just as you run out, for instance, Amazon locks in the
order before you have a chance to visit Walmart.
"You can't get away from Amazon," Beitelspacher
said. "I don't know if gimmick is the right word, but (voice shopping) is
part of a strategy to be omnipresent in consumers' lives."
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, file photo, Google
Home, right, sits on display near a Pixel phone following a product event, in
San Francisco. In the name of convenience, Amazon and Walmart are pushing
people to shop by just talking to a digital assistant. Shopping by voice means
giving orders to the Alexa assistant on Amazon’s Echo speaker and other
devices, even if your hands are tied up with dinner or dirty diapers. And in
September 2017, Walmart will start offering voice shopping, too, with the Google
Assistant on the rival Home speaker. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File) (Photo: Eric
Risberg, AP)
Assistant in charge
Ask Alexa to buy something, and it presents you with
something you've bought before or an educated guess based on some undisclosed
mix of price, satisfaction rating and shipping time. Amazon won't provide more
details. You can get a product's average customer-satisfaction rating, but not
specific reviews, even on screen-equipped Echo Show devices.
Brian Elliott, general manager of Google Express, says that
with most affiliated retailers, personalization occurs as the assistant learns
shoppers' preferences, but the integration with Walmart will happen more
quickly.
In some ways, shopping by voice assistant is a throwback to
the days when you were largely limited to what sales representatives
recommended at a physical store.
Amazon's website gives you a lot of information about most
products, from color options and sizes to the specific reasons other customers
hated a product you're considering.
You're able to compare similar items and choose something
cheaper if you're willing to sacrifice some features or take a chance on an
unknown manufacturer.
And, of course, you can also compare Amazon's prices with
those of other online merchants.
But with Amazon's voice shopping, it's back to what the
company's representative recommends.
Voice shopping requires membership in Amazon's $99-a-year
Prime loyalty program, and it works with most of the tens of millions of items
eligible for free shipping. But someone browsing on the web might find deals in
non-Prime items; Alexa won't let you buy them.
In addition, Alexa's interactions with shoppers are
constrained by the fact that listening and speaking can be a lot slower than
reading and clicking.
And while Amazon's website won't necessarily list the
cheapest option first either, the alternatives are easier to view on a screen.
Justin Evans, an engineer in Whitman, Mass., bought oatmeal
and smart plugs using Alexa to claim exclusive discounts, but he prefers
browsing and reviewing products for general shopping. "I'm a less
impulsive shopper than I think their target market is," he said.
Shopping out loud
Companies are aware that voice shopping takes getting used
to. "It's not natural to shout out a purchase desire and have it be
fulfilled," said Ryne Misso of the Market Track retail research firm in
Chicago.
Jenny Blackburn, Amazon's director of voice shopping,
believes it will catch on once people get used to it.
To get people started, Amazon has been offering exclusive
deals through Alexa and a $10 credit on the first order. For its annual Prime
Day promotion in July, Amazon gave voice shoppers a head start of two hours.
Amazon says voice shopping has grown in the year-plus it's
had it, though it wouldn't release figures. "We're really just getting
started with it," Blackburn said in an interview.
Voice's limited range
Blackburn said voice shopping works best for products with
"lightweight decisions," such as batteries, cat food and paper
towels. Sure, Alexa can order you a TV, but you'll probably want to do some
research first.
Nels Romerdahl, a student at the University of Hawaii in Maui,
said Alexa can be a big improvement over Amazon Dash buttons — plastic gadgets
that can you place around the house and press anytime you need to reorder a
specific item. But he doesn't use either Alexa or Dash for recurring items — he
stocks up when his parents visit Costco every few weeks.
To prevent inadvertent orders, like the widely circulated
report from a local television station of a 6-year-old girl who had Alexa order
a dollhouse and sugar cookies for Christmas, Amazon lets you set up a PIN you
can recite to the assistant. Amazon disputes the report, saying someone would
have had to say "yes" before the order went through.
To boost comfort, Amazon promises free returns on voice
orders; normally, Amazon charges a shipping fee for returns unless the
company's at fault.
That might not satisfy everyone. Los Angeles attorney Pam
Meyer, who bought some dog treats through Alexa to claim her $10 credit, said
she'd want something like a cash-back guarantee when Alexa doesn't offer the
best price.
