Dive Brief:
-
Amazon.com Wednesday announced a mind-boggling new feature within its mobile app called Flow. Flow recognizes one item or several items at once and adds them all to a customer's Amazon shopping cart.
-
The feature only works through the iPhone for now, and there’s no word when that will expand — even onto Amazon’s own Kindle Fire.
-
Twinkling blue stars appear over the items to show shoppers what they are buying — and the whole process takes seconds.
Dive Insight:
Just when we thought Amazon was all about announcing shopping and shipping technologies that would only be possible far into the future, the online retailer shows that the future is already here. With Flow, Amazon takes mobile shopping up a notch, making it remarkably easy to add things to a shopping cart. This could make showrooming a whole new ballgame. The fact that the technology is only available on the iPhone matters not a bit — it’s here and it puts all other mobile apps to shame. With innovations like this, consumers will certainly find it easier to shop on Amazon.