Ahead of its annual sales event dubbed Prime Day, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will incentivize deal hunters to use their voices while shopping by giving discounts to customers who will use the voice-activated platform of Alexa when placing orders. Starting Wednesday over 100 deals have been made available for those using voice-activated devices such as Fire TV and Echo speakers to order.
Customers who order via voice will also be able to obtain Prime Day deals some two hours prior to the general public. Amazon offered similar deals during the holiday season and last year as well. To get the deals all that shoppers are required to do is ask Alexa what the particular deals are. They will then be presented with a rotating list of daily offers for a week.
Membership fee discount
Anyone who signs up to Prime membership for the first time will make a $20 saving on the membership fee as they will be required to pay $79 instead of the regular price of $99. Products that will be offered at a discount from the first day include a Bluetooth speaker which will priced $50 lower and lighting products which will come at a $20 discount.
However, according to a survey conducted DealNews.com, a website for bargain hunters, over 50% of customers have shown no interest in the deals because they don’t trust Alexa to get the orders right. Some of the shoppers also find voice shopping inconvenient. The Amazon smart speakers have been a hit though especially for consumers interested in using them to stream music, set kitchen timers or get recipes via voice command.
Limited information
According to Benjamin Glaser, the DealNews features editor, the reason voice shopping hasn’t taken off is because shoppers have limited information at their disposal.
“The obstacle isn’t using your voice. It’s adding a step to the transaction and making a buying decision with less information. That’s the challenge. It just doesn’t seem to have any advantages,” said Glaser.
On Wednesday shares of Amazon.com Inc rose by 1.86% to close the day at $971.40.
