Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Target Corp. (TGT), Ideal Purchase (BBY)

First, let me admit something up front — I am behind the times. I’m not part of the texting culture because I do not own a cell phone. This makes me odd, I know, and I probably will own one of these devices sooner rather than later, but for now, I have to call myself what I am — a texting virgin. Nevertheless, I read with interest the following article about a new initiative by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

The article says that Amazon is launching a program called TextBuyIt, where users can get information on products by searching for them via a name/description or a UPC number. Here’s the big kicker from the article, though: the author points out that people can, of course, do shopping even while they find themselves in competing real-world stores. So, if a hip texter is in a Ideal Buy (NYSE: BBY) or a Target (NYSE: TGT) or a Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), maybe stated hip texter might buy a product from Amazon instead of buying it from where he’s at. That’s the implication of the service, at least.

I’m not sure if I buy that this service will add much value to Amazon’s current mobile offerings, though, at least in the short run (also, it sounds like a complicated task to perform). Thing of it is, when you’re on the go, while you might use your cell phone to play games and acquire information, and maybe even put in an order for a stock or two, I’m not sure that anyone outside the most hardcore tech demographic would want to begin shopping on Amazon via texting. I mean, if you’re in a store, you probably would want to purchase an item from a store, right? Plus, if you’re on the go, you would probably want to just pop into a nearby store to purchase something if you’ve the urge.

I see the value of brick-and-mortar retailers using texting to establish relationships with customers — e.g., “text in an order and we’ll have it ready for you at the front when you pull in,” sort of like texting a pizza order. For all I know, that might already be happening somewhere. But, I’m not confident this will work for Amazon in the exact competitive fashion it envisions. However, I’ll acknowledge that it is something Amazon must nevertheless experiment with to cover its bases; after all, even though I am not currently part of it, we’re in a texting zeitgeist, whether we care about it or not…

Disclosure: I don’t own shares in any of the companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Products and Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.