Amazon.com’s TextBuyIt Lets Customers Shop Via Text Message

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SLJ staff -- School Library Journal, 4/7/2008 10:44:00 AM

As if it wasn’t easy enough to unload your dough on the retailing behemoth’s site, Amazon has rolled out a new service that lets customers use text messages to shop. With the addition of the new service, called TextBuyIt, to Amazon’s existing mobile offering, including its mobile site and mobile iPhone site, customers can now shop, compare prices, and buy from Amazon.com virtually anywhere they are, with any mobile device, using either text messages or their mobile device’s Web browser. 
“With TextBuyIt, if you’re walking out of a concert and want to buy a CD from the artist you just saw, or if you’re at dinner and a friend tells you about a great book you should read, all you have to do is get out your mobile device, send a text message to Amazon, reply to the response, confirm your order, and your item will be on its way,” says Howard Gefen, Director of Amazon Mobile Payments.
Here’s how TextBuyIt works. Simply send a text message to “AMAZON” (262966) with the name of the product, search term, or a UPC or ISBN code, and, within seconds, Amazon replies with the product or products that match the search, along with prices. To buy an item, customers simply reply to the text message by entering the unique single-digit number next to the item they want. Amazon will then call the customer with the final details of their order and ask them to confirm or cancel the purchase.
First-time customers with TextBuyIt will be asked for their email address and shipping ZIP code they use for their Amazon.com account. With this information, Amazon uses customers’ default settings for payment method, shipping address, and shipping speed, including two-day shipping for Amazon Prime members.