The New Era — The One-Tap Buying
What is worst than a long buying checkout process when everything else is at a tap away from you?
Amazon quickly understood the pain caused by the harsh checkout process and that is why it kept its one-click buying feature for itself for ten years. The market was completely different back then but still, Amazon thought of removing this huge friction out of its users’ way and exposed itself as the rising King of Ordering Online. Amazon also knew that Internet and computers would get quicker — maybe not that quick though — and that e-Commerce would rise up to be the future of selling and buying goods. Amazon was right ten years ago! Lucky for us, this feature is now available for company to use without paying royalties to Amazon. It has been available since three days and yet, we don’t hear much about it. It think it is a bit disappointing.
This is a silent tsunami, I am telling you!
I have made a quick research today to see how the market adapted. As a big e-Commerce player, I would have prepared for the Amazon one-click patent to end and offer this feature to my customers as soon as possible. I mean, like right now. I believe the timing could have a tremendous impact on sales, user engagement and loyalty. I would have taken this opportunity to be one of the first to get into it and do a lot of communication around it. The sooner the better! Surprisingly, I only found Barnes & Noble that offers Instant Purchase. I know they had a hack of the one-click patent with more steps before and I am still wondering if this is the same exact thing.
Did companies missed the boat? Is it too soon to see the wave coming?
The sooner the better!
I think the market is already considered as slow to adapt. We should be able to see the tip of the wave by now. Or maybe I just did not see the tip yet. Anyway, here is why you should have gotten on it by now.
Known expiry date
September 12 2017. It was communicated and known but there was not much hype about it recently. Did we forget about it? Is it because the opportunity is not that great? Do most of the key players thought it was not interesting enough? Is there a lack of sense of opportunity here? I think it is an opportunity great enough for each player to have his own one-click buying feature by now or at least, in the next few weeks.
Friction considerably reduced
With the one-click buying feature you can buy an item in like five seconds. Compared to the 30 to 60 seconds it usually takes to go through the checkout, it is a considerable performance improvement and we should not underestimate the impact on the user engagement and the revenue it will generate.
Huge improvement on mobile and tablet
Think about it: people spend hours on their mobile and tablet, they bring it with them everywhere, they buy a lot on it and now you can reduce their checkout time by about 75% to 90%. It is a complete different situation since the waiting time is no longer an issue. It means that buying online on mobile and tablet can be improved considerably.
Impulsive buying
Reducing the friction of buying online and accelerating its process on mobile and tablet leaves place to impulsive buying. Not that I totally agree with promoting impulsive buying but we cannot say that this is not a real business opportunity.
Be one of the first after Amazon
Timing is everything
I think it is a good value proposition to offer a one-click buying feature to your users. More importantly, I think that this has more value if you are one of the few to have it. This opportunity will disappear quickly. Imagine having this feature available by now and doing a huge marketing and communication campaign about it: “Hey, you can know buy [item] with one click.’’ It is time to conquer.
Conclusion
I thought the market would be ready to adapt more quickly than this. Maybe I did not find those who are already adapting, but I think there is not enough buzz around it. Luckily, it is still an opportunity to grasp right away. Maybe the market is adapting and I did not find the big players who jumped on the opportunity yet. Maybe the market is really sleeping. Maybe this is not as big as I thought it would be, though I am pretty sure it is a huge event for the e-Commerce market and that we will see the wave impacting soon. It is the beginning of a new era.
That being said, would delivery be the next huge pain to get rid of in online retail? Here is a tip: ask Amazon about its one-day delivery.
Thanks for reading. I hope my modest thought about this event will trigger a discussion. I would like to have your thoughts on it so feel free to comment. Cheers. :)
