
AmazonCart – Add items to your Amazon.com shopping cart without leaving Twitter - applecore
http://www.amazon.com/gp/socialmedia/amazoncart/
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josefresco
On a related note, I find myself frequently adding something to my cart with
the intention to _possibly_ buy it later on. Why don't I use Amazon's wishlist
for this? I can and do, but I find that because Amazon's cart is so reliable,
sticky and frankly .. good, I can effectively use it as a wishlist.

Other sites you have no idea if something you added to your cart will be there
later, but with Amazon it's almost a guarantee.

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bdevine
I do this as well, because the cart has the property of notifying me of price
changes of items saved in the cart. I'm actually not sure if wish lists do
this as well, but as I am in the cart so often (shopping online as much as I
do), it's easy for me to keep an eye on items that I might be hesitant about
pulling the trigger on.

~~~
josefresco
Wish lists do track pricing, a feature which I wish I used more. In fact I
wish I could add everything I "view" on Amazon to a list like this. I find
that most consumers (including myself) don't realize how much prices fluctuate
and it's really a killer savings tool if you don't have to have the product
_now_.

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Touche
What's interesting to me is that this is not a partnership between Twitter and
Amazon. Amazon is simply using the API to get the hashtag results.

The way Twitter would want this to happen is by using Twitter Cards with a
button to add to the cart. Of course they would be able to tax the use that
way. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitter makes a move to block this
functionality.

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genesee
How could they block this? It's an incredibly general use case of their API.

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Touche
Just block Amazon's servers.

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deedubaya
Hahaha, yeah along with every service that runs on AWS? Yeah, don't think so.

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batmansbelt
What is the benefit here to the tweeter? I guess you could post an affiliate
link and get paid for it. Otherwise you're just advertising for amazon for
free, which hardly needs doing.

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astrowilliam
A lot of people tweet random amazon links on my feed, not affiliates, just
normal people that buy stuff on amazon. I could see it coming in handy for
them.

I personally don't see any need for this in my life right now, though I do buy
a lot on Amazon.

For marketers, this could be a huge deal.

~~~
hagbardgroup
Yeah. Especially because Amazon pays to retarget people based on their cart
items until they convert. So if you have goods listed on Amazon, this is a way
to quickly get people that you interact with on Twitter to sign up to get more
pressure on them to make the extra step from add cart -> purchase. If they can
make it so that you don't even have to visit the Amazon site to give you cart
reminders I could see more people than just Amazon adopting this. So you
effectively get free ads on Amazon's dime if you can get customers to adopt
it.

Even people like small authors could do great with this: they can have a
smooth transition from talking about their book with people online to having
them buy it without relying on people's keeping their short term memory
together so they remember to pick up the book. Authors sell books on their
book tours because people don't have a chance to forget to pick up a copy.

If you find it annoying, you can just either not follow the Amazon accounts or
block them. This is a nifty little thing, and it'd be a shame if it gets
screwed up.

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readme
Finally, the intersection of materialism and superficiality has manifested
itself as a mashup of twitter and amazon. Now, not only can you buy the things
you want, you can brag about it simultaneously with minimal extra effort.

This is of course, assuming no one is going to tweet about things they
actually need like: "#AmazonCart
[http://amazon...toiletpaper"](http://amazon...toiletpaper") and so on, but
someone could surprise me.

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andrewguenther
That tweet wouldn't work. You have to reply to someone else's link with
#AmazonCart.

I think the goal here is to benefit brand name Twitter handles. They could
feasibly see their exact reach if Amazon made that data available to them.

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nivla
Wow that is a new twist to privacy I din't see coming. Let the world know what
you are buying and what could possibly go wrong. How long until advertisers or
spammers pull in automated scans for tweets with #AmazonCart and start
delivering personalized recommendation via direct message or via a mention on
their tweet. Well atleast they got to narrow it down from possible customers
to potential customers.

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hagbardgroup
You can't DM someone that you don't follow. Twitter already exposes all the
text of non-protected accounts to advertisers for their contextual ad
products.

'Automated scans for tweets' are what Twitter already sells to advertisers.
That's their entire ad product. Who you follow and what you talk about on your
account are already used to target ads to your feed. @mentioning when you
don't follow just dumps you into the non-default notifications tab, which
users have to tap to 'all' to actually see.

You're totally correct that it's a privacy concern. It helps a little that
Twitter doesn't have a real name policy. I am more concerned about the total
lack of privacy in credit card transactions, because there is no way to opt
out of that. In this case the user can at least opt out of sharing their
transactions with the world. With credit cards we're all opted in to dumping
our account data into a marketplace that can be easily connected to a real
name.

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nivla
>You can't DM someone that you don't follow. Twitter already exposes all the
text of non-protected accounts to advertisers for their contextual ad
products.

I agree but think about it this way. I follow Starbucks because I like them
and visit them often. Now I see a link for discounted Starbucks coffee on
Amazon and purchase them via twitter. Prior to that Starbucks had to make
assumptions or run some machine algo on my tweets to determine: a) I am not a
bot and b) My loyalty can or cannot be leveraged. However with this purchase,
whenever they bring out a new flavor they could be certain with some
confidence that I would make a purchase, thus messaging me personally or
including me in one of their tweets.

Its not necessarily a bad thing but history has it that convenience always has
its price.

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bradhe
Oh wow, finally! The pain of remembering what I need to buy has truly been
relieved. All that app switching, password typing. I can guarantee this
innovation will save me tens--perhaps hundreds--of seconds. As an added bonus
I'll also be able to share with my friends all the weird shit I'm buying on
Amazon. Publicly.

Thanks Amazon, your innovative spirit truly knows no bounds.

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boomzilla
Oh, I needed a double take to get the sarcasm :)

On a more serious note, very few people actually hit the buy button before
spending a few minutes on the product detail pages to at least verify it's the
stuff they want to buy. People usually spend more time to research the
product, and various buying options to make sure they get a best deal.

This is probably an intern project that was somehow hyped up to get some PR
for Twitter.

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antsar
Could someone have already had their Amazon account linked to their Twitter
(for some existing feature)? If so, I'm anxiously awaiting "I just retweeted
something and Amazon shipped me this crap I didn't want with my next order".

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josefresco
I could foresee a marketing angle based on this worry that is _cringe
worthy_... You tweet or retweet an Amazon product, and Amazon (with a prior
agreement with the manufacturer) automatically ships the item to you to "try"
it out hoping that you'll either keep it, or talk it up on social networks. I
give my prediction less than 3 years until Amazon and some desperate brands
give it a shot.

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xgarland
Very interesting merger of social and e-commerce here. I'd expect other
players in the space to follow suit, or at least discover new ways to engage
their clientele via social channels.

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normloman
We gotta stop using the word "engage" so much.

There's a myth among social media marketers that their worth is measured by
how much they "engage" users. Problem is, the word "engage" is vague enough to
cover any action. Liking is engaging. Clicking is engaging. Commenting is
engaging. So companies post crap on Facebook that does nothing for their
bottom line, but justify it by the number of times it was liked or shared.
That's how we get all this clickbait nonsense. It doesn't actually "engage"
anyone, but it gets clicked.

So lets be specific. This is not "engaging clientele via social channels".
This is using twitter for window shopping, not to mention free advertising.
And I for one think it's a terrible idea. Twitter an unsuitable interface for
shopping, and I don't want the whole world to know what I'm buying on Amazon.

Sorry to flip out on you. It just seemed like the ideal place to criticize the
breezy, bs-filled lingo of the tech industry. Likewise, I'm annoyed by "other
players in the space". You could have easily said "other online retailers."

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egfx
If anybody has any bright ideas on how this could be used with
[http://2fb.me](http://2fb.me) technology let me know..

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ericraio
I would prefer a wishlist feature instead of a the shopping cart so i can
purchase the item later

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astrowilliam
I would as well. I might not be in the mood to buy the product right now, but
would like to be reminded about it later.

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p-pat-ni
That's interesting. I generally add whatever I would like to buy later to my
cart instead of wishlist. I never visit the wishlist and by adding to cart, it
reminds everytime I checkout something else.

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astrowilliam
I'm a big list guy. I like to store things in different lists depending on my
interests. I also do a lot of repeat buying so it's helpful to have a bunch of
lists.

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SethMurphy
I wonder if Amazon filed for a patent for this? Would there be prior art that
anyone knows about if so? At their scale I am sure it wasn't an "easy" feature
to add, but it is simple (and obvious). I see many e-commerce sites doing
something similar if they could legally.

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datamingle
Add now. Buy Now. (using Digital Currency) That would be interesting to me.

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droob
"Garbage up your interaction with real humans to make talking to our robot a
little easier."

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hodgesmr
Maybe. Or this is equivalent (better?) than liking on Facebook. This feels
like a "Like" but actually takes action that is valuable to the business.

