Is Amazon Trying to Turn Us All Into Drones?
Taken to an extreme, Dash and other automation efforts seem designed to break, rather than encourage, the Amazon habit. They give consumers one less reason to spend time on Amazon, which means one less impulse buy is considered or add-on item purchased. This would seem to give other e-commerce sites an opportunity to compete in the arena of product discovery and impulse buying, where Amazon has carved such a decisive advantage. If the strategy that drives Amazon’s sales is indeed replaced with the strategy that drives its fulfillment, the door will be wide open for new platforms to specialize in what made Amazon great.
Therefore, it's almost assured that Amazon has no intention of making a more serious move into the automation game. It will roll out just enough to make life easier for repeat buyers (that diaper button over the changing table is starting to sound pretty good), and clear out whatever incipient competition exists in the space. Amazon will do this while continuing to rely on the Amazon way of life to satisfy its core shoppers and power its revenues.
Jack Lowinger founded group shopping and e-commerce solution Cartonomy in 2012 in order to fill a void of viable social shopping options online. Jack also serves as CEO of Retry, a New York-based online retail technology developer.
