Conversional commerce: tried, but failed

Only 0.2 % of all Amazon Echo owners in the United States have actually bought something using their smart speakers. Is the technology worthless, or just not ready yet?

Tried, but not finished

Trendhunters had predicted that ‘conversational commerce’ would be the next big thing in retail, claiming that ordering by voice – talking to a voice assistant in a smart device – would be worth 40 billion dollar in turnover in the US alone in the next few years. The Information revealed however that of the 50 million Americans that use Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa through the Echo speakers, only 0.2 % have actually already bought something using the device. 

Does this mean that people just don’t feel like buying new batteries or toilet paper using a speaker? Or is the technology still not ready yet for such large-scale use? Time will tell, but it may not be a good sign that a million people already did try to buy something – but did not finish the process…