Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Aug 20, 2018
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Voice commerce off to slow start for Amazon

Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Aug 20, 2018

While conversational commerce (also known as voice commerce or v-commerce) is heralded as the next major step forward in e-tail, even US online giant Amazon is reportedly struggling to convert the users of its Echo connected loudspeaker and Alexa voice assistant to it, with only 2% of them appearing to use v-commerce tools regularly.


The Echo connected loudspeaker - Amazon


The news was reported by US website The Information, citing two sources with access to Amazon’s business data. Amazon is actually very close-mouthed about this data, refusing to indicate the share of its revenue generated by apparel, the latter having been at the heart of several recent launches.

Amazon’s Alexa is the main competitor of the Google Home connected loudspeaker and the Google Assistant voice assistant, and is currently deployed on about 50 million devices. Yet, of all the consumers who rushed into voice-activated purchases, 90% are reportedly not repeating the experience. About 20% of users are seemingly using the function only to collect information about ongoing deals and to monitor the progress of their orders.

Demo of an online purchase via Amazon Echo


Voice commerce is expected to generate sales worth $40 billion by 2022, compared to $2 billion now. “Our voice-user interface has huge strategic significance,” said last March the Europe General Manager of Amazon Pay, Giulio Montemagno, interviewed by FashionNetwork.com.


 

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