Tag: amazon mobile app

Amazon thinks mobile apps should be sold through a Prime model

| March 26, 2015

The online marketplace’s own Appstore may not yet have the same number of offerings as Google Play, but it is growing.

Amazon may not yet have the same number or quality of mobile apps that are available through the Google Play store, but it hasn’t given up on being able to become an important competitor in the application marketplace.

It could begin offering a service called Amazon Unlocked, which would be built on a Prime-like model.

The idea behind the Amazon Unlocked service would be that consumers would be able to subscribe with a monthly fee and would be able to gain access to a range of different premium paid mobile apps, without any additional cost. Moreover, what may make this offer even more appealing to many consumers is that many in-app purchases would also be included with a monthly subscription to the service. This, according to a report from TechCrunch. This style of service would help users to enjoy the experience they want through their various applications, without racking up a tremendous bill in the process.

The new mobile apps service would also likely be a way for Amazon to push its Fire smartphones.

Mobile Apps - AmazonThe TechCrunch report also pointed out a number of other components of the Amazon Unlocked service, which it claims to have seen in the form of slides. For example, beyond included premium apps and included in-app purchases, there were also some large names that were dropped. Among them were Monument Valley and Sonic Dash, which are clearly major titles in the Amazon mobile application arsenal.

That said, at that time, there was no mention made with regards to when the Amazon Unlocked service might begin to become available, nor was any specific subscription price or even a range of prices offered. Moreover, there has yet to be any official confirmation made to the report that was made on this service. That said, as soon as word does arrive, it is certain that this will send the users of mobile devices in droves over to the Amazon app library.

The focus of this mobile apps service, according to the report, will be on simplicity. The goal will be to eliminate the sensation of being overwhelmed by choices and prices with regards to their application selection and usage.

Augmented reality is Amazon’s latest shopping tool

| February 11, 2014

The massive online marketplace has brought in AR tech for even faster buying abilities.

The iOS version of the Amazon app is now giving customers the opportunity to take advantage of Flow and augmented reality to help shoppers to be able to shop even faster and easier by scanning items in real life so that they will be able to instantly buy them from their own mobile commerce shelves.Amazon - Augmented Reality Shopping

This is making mcommerce headlines around the world as it changes the entire nature of shopping.

The idea is that a consumer at home would be able to spot an item that needs to be replaced or replenished and could simply pick up their mobile devices to scan it so that it could be automatically ordered. Undoubtedly, Amazon must also be hoping that consumers will also use this opportunity to order products from them while they are standing in another company’s brick and mortar retail stores.

The company expressed that using this augmented reality experience could make shopping as short as two seconds.

In fact, through the use of this technology, the shopping experience could be even shorter than that, once the consumer is truly familiar with this new version of mobile commerce. The Flow app was first launched in 2011 as a form of augmented reality software, and now its integration with the iOS version of the Amazon mobile app makes it possible for an item to be identified by aiming the smartphone camera at it so that Amazon can then find its replacement in its massive product inventory.

This image recognition function has been upgraded from previous techniques that involved barcode scanning, or searching by entering a product name and conducting a query using a manual search function on the website. If the image recognizer is not capable of identifying the item, the users are still able to fall back on the old fashioned searches or barcode scans. Reportedly, some of the most Flow compatible products are DVDs, CDs, video games, and books.

Once products have been scanned through this augmented reality mobile commerce experience, they are saved into a search history, which will make them even easier to reorder.