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Home > Plugged In > Archives > 2008 > April > 02 > Entry
Wireless: Amazon goes mobile (again)
LAS VEGAS - Amazon.com, the king of online shopping, is hoping - once again - that it can dial-up similar success with mobile phones.
Amazon just launched a new service that lets users shop for and buy goods with a simple text message from their cell phones.
Users who set up an account with Amazon’s new “TextBuyIt” service can send a text message on their cell phone to Amazon with the name of the product they want. Amazon automatically searches the Web and its warehouses for the products and replies with a list of items. To buy, a user just presses a number corresponding to the book or movie or big screen TV they want and the product - and the bill for it - gets automatically sent to their home. Amazon thinks the service will be especially handy for folks who go to a concert and want to instantly buy a CD online, or want to buy a DVD or book that a friend recommended at dinner while they’re on the way home.
The idea of cell-phone commerce - or in industry parlance, mobile or “M-commerce” - is nothing new. Retailers - including Amazon - and wireless companies have been pushing the idea in different forms and fashions for years, with scant success so far.
But that hasn’t kept them from trying. Along with Amazon, many companies at the CTIA wireless industry trade show here this week are showing off new ideas for M-commerce.
They may be - finally - on to something. A Harris Interactive poll earlier this month found that consumers may be warming up to M-commerce. About 25 percent of cell phone users with mobile Internet access said in the survey that they use their phones to buy goods by credit card. About 20 percent said they would someday like to use their phones as a “mobile wallet” to buy goods and get charged for them on their monthly cell phone bill.
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