Amazon Rolls Out Text-To-Buy Platform

Your classic old-school impulse buy: you see a Kit Kat at the checkout line and you help the retailer make a few easy pennies. The impulse buy of the future? You hear a song on the radio and whip out your cell phone to buy it with a text message. Amazon's TextBuyIt platform enables just that. You can now send a text to "AMAZON," and input the name of a product. Amazon returns options with a purchase code for each. Text back with the code, confirm your Amazon account, and voila!, your package is soon on its way. I'm envisioning major co-op opportunities here. Incorporate a "buy code" with a video ad, and phone users could complete a purchase in less than a minute. Ka-ching!

Internet Retailing: April 3, 2008
By Marcus Austin