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Only a Small Percentage of Users Buy Stuff Through Alexa, Report Claims (arstechnica.com)
Analysts have been aggressively optimistic in their predictions about the growth of consumer shopping via virtual assistants like Amazon's Alexa, but a new report claims that only a small fraction of Alexa device owners shop with voice commands. And most of those who do only try it once or stick to a limited range of products. From a report: Two people who have been briefed on Amazon's "internal figures" told tech business publication The Information that only around 2 percent of people who own Alexa-equipped devices like those in Amazon's Echo line have ever made a purchase with Alexa. Of that 2 percent, about 90 percent tried it once and did not attempt it again after that, one of The Information's sources said. And even those users who regularly use Alexa to shop mainly do so for small purchases like household supplies.
Its like .99 I mean how small is that ?!?!?
The first type is the most common - people who bought them because they were cheap and looked like a fun toy. These folks all played with it incessantly for a week or two, then put them away (one such friend told me he isn’t even sure where he put it).
The second type are people like my sister. She set it up and still uses it regularly - but only to play background music in her living room. She’s never used it for anything else and is not interested in learning how to do so (although I did teach her younger son how to get it to fart).
The only people I am aware of ever using the Echo for ordering anything are the guys on TWIT.
#DeleteChrome
We've tried buying stuff from Alexa, but it's just so hard to determine what you're about to buy is actually the thing you want. The only time we actually go through with it is when we're rebuying something and recognize the exact name and cost, but that's pretty rare.
https://xkcd.com/1807/
I don't think this is news to anyone
I have an Echo and use it for lots of random things, but shopping is objectively worse for most products. If I know exactly what I want, like I want to rebuy something consumable like the article talks about, I've used it a time or two. But for browsing or comparing products it's objectively worse than using a computer or even my phone where I can see all the specs/details right there and side by side, tab by tab, or whatever. I don't see myself ever really wanting to use it for more.
I don't have any of these (spy) devices, but can't imagine I'd actually shop for stuff using it - certainly not things I hadn't already purchased before - because there's no way to review the items, like you can using a browser, to ensure it's really what you want. For things I've previously bought and am simply re-buying, like laundry soap, it might offer some, small, convenience, but not enough to have an always-listening device on my house. These things have always seemed more like a solution in search of a problem.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It is almost like just creating pathways for people to buy stuff doesn't necessarily mean they will buy anything or change their behavior. It is almost as though we are buying things within our budget and rarely actually need very much stuff.
But then...LES GASP, le horror! That means the only way to stimulate purchasing is to PAY YOUR FUCKING EMPLOYEES PROPERLY. Something amazon knows very little about.
An amazon employee even being able to afford one of their overpriced toys is highly unlikely.
Why do they keep making this garbage while their own people are being fired just for getting injured for their miserable safety and employee work conditions? Why can't they stop making stupid assitants and start taking care of their own people? Why would I trust someone that treats their own workforce like garbage not to treat me the same way?
The very first thing I did was disable the ability to buy things with my echo. Who knows *what* I'd have ended up with!
Further, dash buttons can be a real joke. I might order something that's right now a loss leader or at least a bargain compared to driving to the store for it - but when I need it again, the item on the dash button has doubled in price from the original loss leader. All this is common in brick and mortar, which is why you pay attention.
.
The evil is that some of these newer forms of transaction remove the ability to pay attention if you were so inclined, and if you weren't, fleece you on a whole new level.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
are definitely glad to have Amazon listening to their every conversation.
Like most futuristic tech trends. No I won't be paying with my phone or shopping by voice command. Period.
What was the adoption curve for buying things with a credit card?
What was the adoption curve for buying things over the Internet?
Alexa is very much still in the novelty phase. It will take off eventually as it gains trust and ubiquity.
"And most of those who do only try it once or stick to a limited range of products."
I use it to buy stuff I already know, repeatedly.
Perhaps blind people use it extensively but most of us like to see at least a crappy photograph of the product.
But you can buy detergent from the couch instead of walking to the washing machine and press the dash button.
I can buy stuff at Amazon with Alexa, dash buttons, cellphones, tablets and computers, where else is that possible.
if i buy food online from jet.com or costco it's a few minutes to add stuff to the cart and check out. with alexa i have to tell it to buy stuff one item at a time. and with amazon you have no control of the vendor or the price compared to the website.
Siri was a novelty for many too, and quickly become clear it wasn't as useful as most had hoped. Alexa was built to assist in ordering stuff from Amazon and I have yet to use mine to do so. I buy from Amazon all the time, but I like to see stuff and surf prices and deals. Alexa makes this way to difficult to do. Its also not to intelligent and I gave up asking any moderately difficult question because it cannot answer them. My wife and I use it for music on Prime and that's about it. What we know now, we probably would not have bought it. Personally a lot of Amazon devices leave me a bit unimpressed over time.
I buy trivial junk like this every 4-6 months, in bulk. Why would I ever use some toy speaker to buy them, and have them delivered?
These sort of trivial items aren't the kind of thing I'd ever buy online, and it's a waste of money. I couldn't imagine buying TP, paper towels, laundry detergent, toothpaste, etc online. Why? I make one bug shopping trip and buy them every so often. That's not hard. Having trivial every day items like this shipped just seems wasteful and silly.
The things I buy online are things that are either hard to find items (vacuum cleaner bags are often a freaking pain to find the right one), or something where I do significant searching to find something I like, and is cheaper online, has more selection, and doesn't suck up hours upon hours finding driving to a store just to buy a wall mounted shop vac, which they don't have at the box store anyway. I'll even buy oil filters online for the same reason.. it's a somewhat specialty item that's marked up at auto parts stores, is cheaper online, and you don't have to make a special trip to the auto parts store. I doubt Alexa is going to be trained to know which oil filter I need for the car, AND can do comparison shopping.
Common commodities are by definition not special, and are normally cheap items that you'd pay more for to have shipped.
They listen, they learn, soon the terms of service will change and they'll listen and learn more. They'll hear key words, tone, emotion, things that are harder to get with Tweets and FB posts.
And you will be subtly motived to buy things based on what they learn. Having a corporation listen in on you is as insane as having the government do it.
Know why milk is always in the back corner of the grocery store? You'd think with so many people running in to get a gallon of milk for the kids they'd make it easy, and put it in the front, but the store owners want you to go all the way through the store, past every aisle, and maybe think "as long as I'm here"...
They manipulate you and you don't even realize it.
"Hey Alexa, buy me a Toy Yoda"
Alexa: "one Toyota will be parked in your driveway by morning, it will cost 32 thousand dollars"
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The truth is the Alexa, Google Assistant, etc. are remarkably unintelligent and undiscerning. They can do very constrained and stereotyped tasks fairly well, but introduce a minimum of ambiguity, and they start spinning their wheels badly. Even when dealing with simple queries, their lack of understanding is irksome - e.g. if you tell any of them "Do not, under any circumstances, give me the weather forecast" they all promptly and efficiently give you the weather forecast. It will be some time before these gadgets become useful for significantly more than grins and giggles and party games.
Alexa, send me a new TV set.
Alexa send me a new outfit.
Alexa, send me a new throttle cable bracket for my lawnmower.....nice if it worked, but who would bother to load all their tools, etc ahead of time just in case.
Really?
I can think of a couple consumables that might work. Maybe she can reorder ink cartridges.
Do people not buy detergent at the grocery store? It is only one aisle over, one can't be THAT lazy !
I have placed three orders using the echo. you really cannot trust amazon to get the product you want at the cheapest price. Too many times I tried but the price was so much higher than if I went to Amazon online and order it from there.
There is also one other issue about ordering through the echo, security! I have it set up to require a pin number before the order will go through. You cannot use the pin when others are around because it would give them access to your credit card and they would be able to order on your dime. They need to come with a better way to keep your account secure.
https://xkcd.com/1807/
#DeleteFacebook
My heart sinks when I phone an organisation and it wants me to use voice commands. In my experience they often can't even distinguish between "Yes" and "No". Even when I try loud and exagerated, like " YEEEEES! " and " NOOOOOH! ". Yet I speak with a clear "educated" English accent (and this in the UK). How the hell Scotsmen from Aberdeen or the immigrants who can hardly pronounce English get on I can't imagine.
The most stupid thing was phoning BT (the phone company) to report a faulty line. You have to describe to a robot why you are phoning them, but this was (obviously) over a faulty line with crackles and buzzes going on. I was yelling " FAULTY LINE!! ", and it was saying "I'm sorry, I did not catch that. Did you want to pay your bill?". Idiots, you'd think they would have a special number for line faults and have a person answer; I dumped BT after that shitwreck.
Do some people really try to do shopping like that?
Is it really less trouble to use Alexa than just using an app or website? I think most people choose the method where they believe the least amount of problems can occur, and not necessarily the "fastest". That doesn't translate to using Alexa for most people. Same reason I always call in takeout orders instead of using an app. I just feel like i'm less likely to have issues doing it that way.
soon we will have Alexa HD; 2 years later Alexa 3D; then we will forget about it; then someone will come back with amazing Alexa 2.0.
The Clapper is only two decades old. The X10 System is four decades old and much more useful. It's the original electronic home automation system.
I still use X10 to control more than a dozen lights with timers, day/night detectors, motion sensors, and manual controls. I control a few fail-safe appliances with it too. The modules and controllers are cheap and plentiful, you can still buy them new if you wish. The protocol is completely open and there are myriad computer interfaces. Most Free/free HA software will readily use X10 modules.
X10 lamp modules were a little wonky with CFL bulbs, but the massive shift to LEDs has solved that problem. LED bulbs work 100% with 30+ year-old X10 modules including dimming. The only real downside is no two-way verification (with standard modules), and the vampire draw is higher than modern stuff. (I think. Could be wrong there.)
The best parts? 100% Under my complete control with no mandatory "cloud" connection or privacy leaks or Internet-exposed firmware that will never be updated. You don't need a EULA to use it or read a Privacy Statement to see what they are stealing.
The mandatory cloud connection to "home base" is how they make sure you can't buy one and keep it running for 40 years. And network access is absolutely critical for the "security updates" that wouldn't be needed if wasn't connected to an outward-facing network.
I feel bad for all the 'futurists' who are filling their lives with this crap. They're going to be real sorry when they've reduced the world to rent-based microservices with built-in expiration, because eventually - someone's going to turn it all off.
The Clapper is only two decades old.
The Clapper can only control one light. Alexa controls lights throughout my house. I can also use it to start my robotic vacuum, unlock the front door, answer questions, give me a news briefing and summarize my schedule while I prepare breakfast.
The X10 System is four decades old and much more useful.
I used X10 back in the 1990s. It was a failure for good reasons. It was hard to setup, difficult to use, and failed often. It also did not respond to voice commands. Alexa is way more capable, and way more popular.
Disclaimer: I have never used Alexa to order anything.
I used X10 back in the 1990s. It was a failure for good reasons. It was hard to setup, difficult to use, and failed often. It also did not respond to voice commands. Alexa is way more capable, and way more popular.
Disclaimer: I have never used Alexa to order anything.
Your assertions are mostly false:
1. X10 was and continues to be a success. Unless you consider continuous use and sale for 43 years "failure"?
2. X10 hard to setup? How? Maybe if you lack opposable digits! Set the code on a module using physical wheels on the module (no "app" to load on your phone. Oh, wait it's IOS 11.223.43R9 only? Shit!), set the same code on a controller, plug them in, andthey just work. Oh, you might have to get a dime or a penny to use as a tool to set to code. Rough, right?
3. X10 rarely fails. Again, you must lack opposable thumbs. I've never had a module fail, including an original brown BSR appliance module from the mid-1970's still in daily use. There are situations where signals will be unreliable, but I've never had a problem and I've lived in many apartments and densely-populated cities. There are filters and bridges that cost less than a Prime membership that solve those problems. It may be more reliable than Alexa since it doesn't rely on external servers running only at the whim of a billionaire.
4. Not everybody wants voice response, or a 24/7 remote spying device in their home. Even so, X10 has been responding to voice commands since before Alexa was a twinkle in Bezos' eye.
5. Alexa may be able to do more. But by your own admission it does things you don't need. If X10 does what I need, why would I want to tether myself to a third party interested only in selling me more stuff?
6. More popular? Possible, but where's your proof? This whole story is about people not using Alexa. It's still at the Peak of Inflated Expectations stage of the Technology Hype Cycle. Meanwhile X10 has 40+ years of solid productivity behind it.
Alexa's politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The people who tried online shopping via the Echo exactly one time, probably bought a Dot, when they first came out and were just available via Alexa.
I have an Echo Dot in the living room and a Fire TV Cube in the bedroom (sounds backwards but fits my needs better this way.) All of my light fixtures that use regular bulbs have TP-Link Kasa bulbs and I have a fan in each room plugged into TP-Link Kasa smart outlets. There is also a Nest thermostat in the hallway. Every day once I walk through the door I tell Alexa to turn on the bedroom fan (computer is in there where I spend most of the night.) Light bulbs are all automated but 3-4 nights a week I will tell Alexa to turn one or more bulbs off if I don't need them for the night. The light fixtures themselves are in far corners of the rooms they are in, out of reach. At night I throw on some headphones and listen to music through the Echo Dot, using an Echo Remote w/ Alexa to play requested music. Specific songs, specific albums, various genres, as well as a Playlist I maintain on the Amazon website.
The monetization of all of this for Amazon is a $3.99/month Echo Music Unlimited subscription. $48 a year isn't bad for a device that I paid $29 for (not including the Cube which I mainly use for Prime video content but also Alexa commands.)
I cannot fathom why anyone would want to shop by voice, to me that's the same thing as shopping by text message. I'm not going to SMS Domino's asking for a pizza, and I'm certainly not going to browse Amazon by voice to see if anything is on sale cheap enough that I might want to make a purchase. Millionaires with no concern about purchases less than $1,000 may have no problem ordering all their crap by voice or subscription but not me, I'm too price sensitive and need to browse and compare with other sites before making a purchase. It's the same reason all those Amazon buttons are being dumped in landfills. They charge to much for commodity items anyways, especially food.