Hello Amazon, yes, you may come in.
Amazon is planning to get into your home, even more. Literally
Just when I thought that Walmart was finally offering something interesting and disruptive to compete with Amazon; Jeff Bezos stroked back with no hesitation, leaving that possibility behind. By the way, if there’s any company I consider seriously investing and making efforts to proactively compete with Amazon, that’s Walmart.
Amazon just took another step forward into world domination, reaching the frontier in ultimate convenience, user experience and engagement; all this while solving one major problem for both, them and their users. What happens when no one is home? You missed your delivery, they have to reschedule. Not anymore, hello Amazon Key.
Basically, Amazon is now piloting a new service that will allow you to receive your order without the need of you been at home, meaning no more discomfort for missing something you really wanted or needed or disturbing the neighbours; but also, more efficiency for them as a company, not having to spend additional resources.
How does it works? I let the video explain it for itself.
It’s not only how disruptive and innovative this in fact is, but another clear demonstration of Amazon’s bold DNA, aways willing to solve problems, push boundaries, but first and foremost experiment.
Rather than just saying people wont like it, they say “lets try it and see how it goes”, and that is Amazon’s biggest asset, they are not afraid. A lot of people won’t like, and that’s ok. They also know it won’t work perfectly right from the beginning, but if you are willing to try, they are going to listen what you have to say.
Amazon Key Happiness Guarantee
“We want you to have peace of mind when you use Amazon Key to receive in-home deliveries. If any Amazon Key in-home delivery was not completed to your satisfaction, or your product or property was damaged as a direct result of the delivery, we’ll work with you to correct the problem.”
At the moment is only going to be piloted in the United States, but if its demand grows, it’s just a matter of time to start seeing it in other locations. You can check availability on your area, as well as all the details about the service in the link below:
Will it work? I have no doubt it will, sooner or later, it is a matter of time, technology and acceptance. I can clearly see a future where this becomes the norm just as next-day or same-day deliveries have become for those in the Amazon ecosystem, and by consequence it will become what we all would expect from other brands to do after we get used to such convenience, and for them to be able to compete, and I personally would like to try it today.
We might not feel comfortable about it right now, but if the benefits are proven and others start using and talking about it, more will follow, and this approach has always been part of the company’s strategy.
However, the real question is not if it will accepted or not, but how much of our privacy are we willing to trade off in the name of such convenience?
Amazon is offering a kit that includes one camera to point at your door to see who gets in, and that’s ok for deliveries, but if we are also going to grant strangers full access to our homes while we are away, immediately we might start thinking about setting more cameras around the house, cameras connected to the internet, and to Amazon’s servers, just like the Echo, that cool device introduced not long ago, that listens and records what we say and that we are ok with.
That’s where the real moral dilemma begins.