No one’s using Alexa to buy stuff. … Yet.
Voice purchasing may not be an immediate slam dunk, but don’t let that derail your plans to join the conversation. (Part I)
On Monday, the Information reported that only 2 percent of Alexa device owners have made a purchase using the Amazon gadget. The data came from “two people briefed on the company’s internal figures.” And immediately Twitter erupted with gleeful “I told you so’s,” presumably the same crowd that cheers every time Elon Musk experiences a set back. But any brand or company that hasn’t explored creating a voice presence on either Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home needs to look beyond that (pretty damning) headline.
The Information’s story says that “2% of the people with devices that use Amazon’s Alexa intelligent assistant … have made a purchase with their voices so far in 2018.” But we don’t know when in 2018 this snapshot was taken. Further, that figure conflicts with many other sources of publicly available consumer data that show between 17 percent to 35 percent voice commerce usage by smart speaker owners, reports Bret Kinsella on the industry site VoicebotAI.
Kinsella also says that because:
• A Voicebot survey in May shows that 26 percent of smart speakers have used the device for shopping,
• Edison Research found that some 33 percent of of smart speaker owners have used the devices to research a product, and
• 17 percent have ordered a new product and 17 percent have re-ordered a product,
… it’s likely that the 2 percent figure only applies to a particular category, or vertical.
And when you drill down by looking at individual skills, that 2 percent figure looks even more dubious. Right out of the gate, Domino’s reported that 1 in 5 of its mobile app customers instead asked Alexa for a pizza, as quickly as two months after its skill was launched. Uber and Lyft are seeing good numbers on Alexa.
Maybe Amazon doesn’t consider those purchases shopping. And if shopping is what you want to do, you’re probably going to want a screen. (A reminder that Amazon makes several Alexa-enabled devices with screens, including the Echo Show, Echo Spot, Fire tablets, and on TVs via the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Cube. Right now, Google Home has no product with a screen.)
Which brings us to the difference between buying and shopping. It’s clear that for reordering, voice can score a home run. But not when research is involved. I’ll buy paper towels by voice, but I shop for shoes.
It’s also clear that the killer retail app will be multimodal: voice-controlled, with a screen. Combining the best of voice and comparison shopping. For example, imagine shopping for vacuum cleaners. Tons of models, tons of research. It’s a task you put off as long as possible.
But what if you could say, “Alexa, show me vacuum cleaners. I want a canister vac that’s good for pets”? Or, “Alexa, show me vacuum cleaners. I only want cordless models.” Or, “Show me only vacuum cleaners with at least a four-star rating.” And then you’re shown (on a screened Alexa device, on mobile, or in your Amazon account online) a curated selection of products based on your specs.
Hands-free, you were able to eliminate hundreds or even thousands of products you don’t want. You’ve saved time as you’re delivered an edited list of only qualifying products. Now you can do your comparisons and read reviews of a much more manageable selection of products that already meet your demands.
(Side bar: Now imagine you can do that with job applicants. Or data in a database. As we’ve always said at Bev Labs, enterprise is where voice really shines.)
In all this talk of purchasing by voice, what’s assumed is that retail is the only play for smart speakers. Truly, whoever said it was? And why aren’t we looking skeptically at how much is sold via Google Home? Because Amazon’s one of the world’s largest retailers, retail sales have become the measuring stick for Alexa’s success or failure.
As Tech Crunch said Monday in response to the 2 percent revelation, “it would be a bit disingenuous to pretend that conversational commerce is anything other than one point in a litany of proposed uses for the likes of Alexa.”
As a hub for our increasingly connected smart homes, Alexa’s an obvious choice. For news, music, podcasts, and other audio, it has content options too myriad to mention. For wellness information and sticky fitness habits, it’s proving its worth. And from every day queries like finding the location of food trucks near you or calling a plumber, Alexa will soon be part of our every day routines.
Besides, this is Amazon we’re talking about. If any company can figure out a way to get us to shop — how they want us to and where they want us to ––they’ll do it. We just might not be there yet.
Elizabeth Barr is the co-founder of Bev Labs, a creative agency that creates voice experiences for companies with something to say.
