Dash-Buttons: instant on-demand shopping experiences [5 Reading Tips]

The wonderful world of Dash-Buttons created by the giant Amazon has just landed in Europe, what means that German, British, and Austrian Amazon Prime Members can start to forget to turn on the laptop, to scroll down on the smartphone and to make a final click or, even two, to complete online purchases.

Since last Wednesday, Dash-Buttons from 32 different brands are available in the marketplace to delight German Amazon Prime members and somehow to revolutionise the shopping-from-home experience. With this system Amazon mainly aims:

To take advantage of impulse purchase. Since the dash button purchase system is activated at one press, it is extremely easy to order products that suddenly seem to be necessary. But don’t panic: if you change your mind you only have to cancel the order as usual after receiving the notification via email. To this respect, it is important to mention that the Dash Button Order Protection doesn’t allow a new order to be placed until the prior order ships, unless the user allows multiple orders.
To accustom users to omni-channel shopping experiences and make them use the app. Since the Dash Button is a Wi-Fi connected device, the app should be installed on any device firstly, the prime account signed up and the dash button connected to the WLAN. Once the button is pressed, one green light will flash to indicate that the order has been placed successfully, while a red light will glow to indicate the opposite.
To foster conversion rates. As no price is shown, brands can sell the product straight away and afterwards deal with any inconvenience or query addressed by consumers. However, this might create a major barrier for consumers.

On-demand shopping

The new Amazon on-demand shopping system allows consumers to order instantaneously essentials such as toilet paper, razor blades, detergent, tissues or hair care products before they run out. It definitely brings IoT to a real and tangible shape and put this technology within the customer’s reach, what will help to test the true potential of pairing different devices for online shopping purposes.

A parallel service along with the Dash-Button is the Dash Replenishment Service (DRS), which is targeted to those consumer goods that are associated with a device like coffee machines, dishwashing machines or a blood glucose meter, for example.

In any case, it is still difficult to imagine the usefulness of having dozens of dash-buttons scattered throughout the house. We will see over the next months the scope of these new services and whether they become popular among consumers or not. By now, it can be seen as a first step towards something big, can’t it?