Failing by Opportunity Cost
Yesterday, Amazon released a brand new feature called Amazon TextBuyIt which lets people buy things using text-messaging. In 2007, 1.6 billion text messages were exchanged daily in the US.
So, it seems natural that Amazon would want to tap into this growing market. But common, who the hell is going to use this feature? How many people are going to be standing around Target, distraught over a sold out shelf of Michael Clayton and then whipping their phone out to punch in 50+ keys to SMS, reply and answer a call to buy on Amazon?
Surely there will be some people who will find this meaningful and practical and that sliver of 1% is lucky. The real problem is what Amazon isn’t doing. People may send billions of text-messages but it hardly means that they are looking to buy things on their 200x120 pixel screens. Google, NYT, basically everyone is reporting that the iPhone is heavily increasing mobile internet usage like nothing else before. But there isn’t a single website that has mastered online mobile shopping. Other realms are faring better, Apple has it locked with Mobile iTunes (so slick it hurts), Facebook on iPhone is a stunner (so good it gets free tv commercials from Apple) but where is online shopping?
This is the problem with AmazonTextBuyIt. Instead of devoting hundreds of man hours into a stupid text messaging system, why not create a superior experience that made Amazon the greatest shopping experience on the iPhone/iPod Touch? You’d think Amazon, master of online efficiencies and one-click would create something that had people craving to buy things on their iPhones. The current effort is half-hearted and mediocre. It feels like its has been cobbled together by a collegiate engineering team over a weekend. It’s frustrating to use, its ugly, it wildly disregards user interface design and information architecture.
For all the resources and costs for creating AmazonTextBuyIt, its a failure on arrival since there is no Facebook level experience for Amazon. Surely (I’d hope) something is coming, but wouldn’t this have been great back in Q1 with all those XMAS iPhones getting gifted?
