Amazon Dashes To Deliver Innovations
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
Talk Or Point At-Home Shopping With Omni-Channel Shopping Tool
The Web’s leading retailer doesn’t show any signs of slowing down when it comes to innovating to craft the ultimate 360-degree consumer experience. In February of this year, Amazon announced the introduction of “Flow,” an app and technology that gives shoppers the ability to scan a product at home to put it in their virtual shopping baskets. As a follow-up to the Flow app, Amazon announced Friday the debut of “Dash”. Dash is a shopping device that makes it easy for consumers to scan products or to simply speak their names in order to place them in their virtual shopping baskets. As Amazon continues to push its Fresh delivery service forward, Dash is another way for the retailer to break down barriers and make shopping as fluid as possible.
“We want you to go from ‘I want that’ to ‘I bought that’ in 30 seconds or 10 seconds … a very short period of time,” comments Paul Cousineau, director of mobile shopping for Amazon. The Dash device is an LED scanner that reads barcodes and voices; the device is available to AmazonFresh subscribers in the San Francisco, Washington, and Los Angeles markets. The device, which runs on Wi-Fi, is available to subscribers who have been issued an invite-only code. As brick-and-mortar grocery stores are rolling out same-day delivery and courier options to stay competitive make shopping easier for their customer base, Amazon’s innovations in this arena are decidedly ahead of the pack. As Instacart and other similar services launch in new markets, the web retailer is planning to launch AmazonFresh in anywhere from 10 to 20 more cities, and reportedly has its sights set on the New York market.
Cost presents a possible hurdle for Amazon in its attempt to dominate the same-day delivery market: presently a subscription to Amazon Fresh costs $299 annually (which includes free grocery delivery). As a solution to the hefty pricetag, it appears that Amazon is attempting to win over customers and court new ones by creating more value and unrolling apps such as Flow and devices like Dash. It is through innovations such as the Kindle and 1-Click shopping, after all, that allowed Amazon to safeguard its future and transform itself from a bookseller to the web’s leading retailer. “Innovation is part of the Amazon DNA, and over the past 15 years, we have been constantly adding and refining technology that enhances and improves the experience of all our customers,” Xavier Garambois, Amazon’s VP of EU retail, previously states.