Source: Amazon
Alexa – Are Americans ready to shop by voice?
Based on the increased adoption of the devices, eMarketer has raised its forecast for shopping activity on smart speakers.
The research firm now predicts 31 million U.S. consumers will shop via a smart speaker such as Google Home and Amazon Echo this year, up 31.6 percent from 2018. “Shopping” includes browsing, researching products and adding things to a shopping cart. By 2021, that figure is projected to climb to 38 million when more than four in 10 U.S. smart speakers are expected to be used for their shopping capabilities.
Comparatively, 21 million consumers are expected to make at least one purchase via smart speaker in 2019.
“New users are testing out the shopping-related features of their devices, and early adopters continue to utilize voice to search for products, ask for prices, and more,” said eMarketer senior forecasting analyst, Jaimie Chung, in a statement.
eMarketer noted that a June 2019 survey from Bizrate Insights showed 21 percent of U.S. smart speaker owners had ordered entertainment via their devices compared with the 11 percent who said the same in October 2018. Similarly, 14 percent re-ordered a previously purchased product in June 2019, up from 11 percent in October 2018.
eMarketer still believes the inability to view products is holding back buying. The research firm added that “many smart speaker users are simply uninterested in using their devices for anything other than the tried-and-true functions with which they were meant to assist: news and weather updates, playing music and asking basic questions.”
Other recent smart speaker findings:
- Adobe found that 36 percent of U.S. adults owned a smart speaker in February, up from 32 percent in June 2018.
- SUMO Heavy’s 2019 Voice Commerce survey found only 17 percent of respondents browsed or shopped using a voice assistant. Among heavy users (use daily or weekly), 42 percent have used a voice assistant to shop.
- The spring 2019 Smart Audio Report from NPR and Edison Research found 58 percent of smart speaker owners worry that hackers could be using their smart speaker to get access to their home or personal information.
- Smart Speaker Shopping Gains Traction – eMarketer
- State of Voice – Adobe
- The SUMO Heavy 2019 Voice Commerce Survey – SUMO Heavy
- How Frequently Do US Consumers Use Voice Assistants? – MarketingCharts
- EMarketer: Shopping on smart speakers is growing faster than previously forecast – Mobile Marketer
- The Smart Audio Report – NPR
- Brands & Amazon: Insights, Opportunities, and Concerns in the Age of E-Commerce – Feedvisor
- Brands see voice ordering as more opportunity than threat – RetailWire
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Have you become more or less confident that smart speakers will become a major driver of shopping activity? What factors would accelerate or hamper their usage as a shopping tool?
Poll
BrainTrust
Meaghan Brophy
Senior Retail Writer
Karen S. Herman
CEO and Disruptive Retail Specialist, Gustie Creative LLC
Shopping and buying the simple stuff by speaker sounds like something I could get used to. But the eavesdropping capabilities of these speakers mean that there won’t be one in my house any time soon.
Smart speakers will definitely play a role in the path to purchase, especially as more and more people incorporate them into their homes. I see smart speakers being used to purchase household supplies, especially by consumers that are already using Amazon Prime to make these purchases. However, when it comes to items like apparel, gifts, and decor, shoppers still want to be able to see what they are purchasing.
This flies in the face of the survey I did with Oracle NetSuite earlier this year of 1,200 consumers and 400 retailers. We found that 95 percent of consumers don’t want to talk to a robot to buy things. Just 5 percent of consumers selected robots and chatbots as the technologies they most want to utilize – that fits well with Amazon but I doubt many others in a substantial way.
Smart speakers are appropriate only for dumb items like paper towels, and they don’t offer a choice of retailers to purchase them from. The MIT Open Voice Network has identified numerous potential problems in ordering from smart speakers…don’t expect to order a dining set from one any time soon.
Cathy, but could you imagine buying that dining room set on your computer or your mobile phone?
Cathy,
Let’s remember that it wasn’t that long ago that you couldn’t order even “dumb items” through a computer, let alone your phone. Technology evolves just like people.
I remember working with the original “Dragon” voice recognition typing systems longer ago than I care to admit. They were awful, and that’s being charitable, but voice recognition continued to evolve.
And as Ben Ball points out, adding video is one more step toward the future of these technologies. It may be a baby step, but it will eventually lead to a powerful stride.
As to MIT, it’s true they have identified numerous problems, but that is a prerequisite for creating numerous solutions. You can’t solve technological issues that you haven’t identified.
I also think there is a generational element to this discussion. I know many people who view “Alexa” almost as part of their household. Their children engage with their Echo devices as though they were almost invisible friends.
And the other day I heard a discussion about the need to teach your children to “thank” Alexa, rather than just barking orders to, “her.” Try it. It’s a little mind boggling. Find me anyone under 10 who has concerns about interacting through voice technology and I’ll reconsider. And they are the market of tomorrow.
So, while I agree with you about certain aspects of the current state of the art, to paraphrase William Gibson I believe, “The future has arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”
This shows what we miss while we are busy reading RetailWire:
Yesterday, Elon Musk announced plans for launching his Neuralink technology — brain implants that he claims will allow disabled people to telepathically control communication devices — very small chips connected to 1,000 wires that measure less than one-tenth of the width of a single human hair connected via Bluetooth to a small computer worn over the ear and a smartphone.
Sort of makes Alexa look like the digital equivalent of your great, great grandmother.
That would truly be a revolution.
Bob – you are oriented to in-store and salespeople, so the survey results don’t surprise me, even with Oracle leading. I have no idea how the chatbot/AI questions were oriented and to who. The 400 retail executives skew the survey as well — for all questions about customer experience. And Oracle’s own article said “…AI and VR are not yet the answer.” I do agree with “yet.”
Banking is moving to digital in significant ways and every major bank has or is rushing to deploy chatbots and assistants because customers embrace them for easy/speedy results. Those same people shop, particularly online, so retail will not be exempt from chatbots, intelligent assistants and voice interfaces as the technologies improve. Read my comments below and accept that the genie is out of the bottle and that especially kids growing up with AI/voice assistants will expect it everywhere for everything.
If I’m oriented to stores and actual people then I guess you’re oriented to tech. No matter how much PR cell providers and payment solution providers give to tech it has serious limitations.
No one craves a bot to buy from. They’ll settle for it.
They may use a bot to schedule appointments really well or make food orders or a million things. The article was about Alexa specifically which many commenters noted was good on unbranded commodities, not “shopping.” I stand by the data in the Oracle NetSuite survey much more than yet another opinion on how no one wants to go to a store, wants everything predicted by AI and the future is only digital.
For transparency: I did not read the report in order to reply to your comment — I read the summary article that you linked to.
I can’t speak for what you think, but it seems like from your history of views about the store being pretty much the whole ball of wax for consumer commerce, most anything else is secondary or invalid to you. I see the balance of consumer-driven technology and human to human interaction and each having a leading role in specific contexts. You did listen to the recent BrainTrust Live! I did with Georgeanne Bender and heard me say essentially that.
Regarding opinions, you’ve injected many in your comment without facts, especially “yet another opinion on how no one wants to go to a store, wants everything predicted by AI and the future is only digital” which I didn’t say or imply.
For transparency, I attached my reply to one of Bob’s posts above in error.
And, I concur with you that nobody is saying that AI will rule the world; that there will be no analog functionality left in the universe after … oh … say … October 27, 2021; or that nobody will ever go into physical store in the future.
Just because Bob works with retailers and consumers doesn’t take away from his research, in fact it strengthens it.
Surveys these days are all over the place, and they often contradict one another. You have to wonder how many are manipulated to reach the desired conclusion. The Retail Doctor/Oracle NetSuite survey is sound; the opinions of 1200 consumers should not be discounted.
Thanks, Georganne. Clearly, there are battle lines being drawn between AI/tech and those who look to being more human in an increasingly technological world.
Bob,
I’m really not sure it’s an “either/or” choice. Here are some questions we should all be asking:
“What if technology allows us to become more completely human, i.e., develop in new and creative ways since technology has freed us from routine activity?”
“Is the future of humanity linked to some sort of a “pragmatic singularity” where humanity will be augmented by technology?”
“Can we imagine a store where a human employee’s sole role was to address the needs of the customer because everything else was being done by technologies?”
“Is the line separating technology from humanity really all that clear?”
Last week I was reading about a research team that had developed AI that could be housed in glass. Just think of the retail applications if their ideas pan out — Smart Cases, displays that “learn,” real-time problem solving, and on and on and on.
Whatever it will look like one thing is safe to predict about the future: there will be people in it, and technologies. What that interaction finally looks like is anybody’s guess.
Agreed it is complicated. But so much of it is essentially routing the rats to the cheese which to me sounds very limiting and inhuman.
Kind of sounds like marketing to me.
[Please note the tongue firmly placed in cheek]
Ken,
I, on the other hand, actually did look at the survey.
Among other nuggets, it suggests, “97 percent of consumers agree there is a need to go into a physical store to purchase items.”
So … since the questions were worded in that way, i.e., phrased to give physical retailers the best possible chances, since its hard to imagine doing ALL one’s shopping online — at least today — it’s safe to assume the results were going to be pretty predictable.
As to the question in question (as it were), it appears to have lumped chatbots and robots together as one entity, so there is no (apparent) way to see if they were objecting to robotic interfaces, or voice-activated devices, or both.
But Bob, whenever we order online aren’t we dealing with a “robot”?
No.
I think this is very simple: consumers want to shop! It is social and discovery in the hand. Case closed.
Rich,
But does that automatically preclude new technologies — voice activated, haptic, neurally connected, and more — finding their way into the consumers’ value chain? I don’t think so.
As Gene Detroyer correctly points out on this thread, once upon a time — and not so long ago at that — the idea of ordering a coffee with your phone would have been dismissed as science fiction, just like the notion of a portable computer, or placing orders for clothes, “into the air.”
Ryan, you are correct in assuming online purchasing is here to stay and to grow. I’m saying the social side of stores will be with us long after we on this discussion are gone. Creative social retailing will remain.
When we shop online, if we are not dealing with “robots” (note the quotes), what are we dealing with. Certainly, not human beings?
The addition of video to devices like the Amazon Echo “Show” will definitely increase shopping. Our household has smart speakers in practically every room, including the garage. They have become our defacto whole house intercom and music system. But our use of Alexa for shopping was limited to adding items to the shopping list — until the Echo Show replaced the unit in the kitchen. Now the Show is quickly replacing the computer screen as the primary source for browsing, price comparison, etc.
Ben,
Alexa just called. She wants you to pick up a half gallon of milk on the way home. Oh, never mind, she’ll take care of it herself.
On a slightly more serious note, I totally agree with you, especially about the impact of video.
I am never entrusted with chores of that magnitude — no matter who’s calling! 😉
Fair point. Sorry, I forgot.
Humans start using voice on the day they are born — it’s innate. So not having a voice shopping option is what’s unnatural. Just like ATM, internet, and mobile adoption, it’s still early on the curve, but when the curve moves along, there is zero doubt voice shopping will be a significant platform — likely within five years. Smart speakers however, are not the best implementation.
For reordering staple products, voice is obvious and convenient and smart speakers can get the job done. When it comes to discovery they are not good and offer no visual product understanding (obviously). There will be a growth of both in-home devices with screens and speakers as well as better integration of voice assistants into mobile and desktop browsers.
So when the real convergence of intelligent assistant, contextual AI, personalization, and multimodal devices occurs, voice shopping will be a booming business.
Great points here Ken and I’m glad you’ve made the important distinction between voice shopping and smart speakers. I agree that we will be using more sophisticated in-home devices with screens and speakers (I use voice on Xfinity with a remote all the time) and voice assistants will have better integration into mobile and desktop browsers. Eventually, smart speakers will be left behind.
Voice commerce is truly on the rise and is scaling up, however, we are in the age of the smartphone, which will be the dominant form of engagement, discovery, and interactions with brands. For the smart speaker loyalists, it appears as though repeatable purchases, items that need to be replenished, and other commoditized/convenience items are the sweet spot in this new arena.
The challenge for smart speakers is that while it’s extremely convenient, it essentially eliminates several steps of brand engagement, including discovery, comparison shopping, reading reviews and showrooming in the physical locations. Smart speakers will have their place, just not in high fashion, high touch, luxury, and electronics, where there are far more complex paths to purchase.
No wonder consumers are not fully embracing ordering via voice; Alexa has a hard time understanding what she’s being asked.
I have ordered movies on TV via voice, but I am not interested in buying anything else unless it’s something I know and have used/ordered before. And apparently I am not alone. People still want to see what they are ordering online, even if it’s just in the form of a photo.
I hear you on the voice recognition, Georganne. Try it with a southern accent! 🙂
Kidding aside, we really don’t have too much trouble with that. What limits Alexa now isn’t her “understanding” I don’t think. Rather, it is that Alexa is not Google — and that’s what we have become accustomed to. They tap into two very different databases (Google’s being infinitely more extensive obviously) and Alexa doesn’t answer questions much beyond “what’s my notification?” at the moment. But that is getting better. What Alexa can do is take your instruction quite well. I like that part!
Good points! Here’s the thing: I may buy every day necessities via voice but I won’t use it to shop. Shopping requires a deeper interaction. If I said, “Alexa, order me a size medium red long sleeve blouse” who knows what I would receive?
Not to mention the topic we haven’t brought up yet — from which store? Sure, Alexa drives Amazon purchases. But what about purchases from other stores? Google is trying to lead that, but the added complexity of choosing items PLUS which store to get them from, and then the level of automation required to fulfill that multi-store order I just created via voice is something completely different.
I utilize Alexa for items I know. To “shop”? Nope. I want to see what I am shopping for, thereafter, I probably will be more than comfortable with just Alexa. But for quick information on products, Alexa is my choice of convenience.
Couldn’t agree more, Rich. I think Alexa is helpful for “buying” in terms of executing mundane, repeat purchases, but not for “shopping.” I also want to see what I’m buying and what the options are. Plus, shopping can be fun 🙂
Voice will be the next disruptor! No doubt about it. It will only be a question of time until voice commerce becomes normal in our daily life. The main argument is CONVENIENCE! But then questions about ownership will arise. The voice assistants are dominated by Google, Amazon and Apple. How will retailers cope with it? If retailers do not want to be bypassed by these tech giants, then an open voice network is desperately needed.
Consumer technology adoption grows as technology becomes relevant, convenient and easy. Smart speakers are being used by more households each year because the basic uses, as articulated in the survey in the article, are definitely relevant and easy, however the challenge has been and still is convenience — when convenience includes the fact that the technology’s natural language processing becomes accurate. My neighbor asked her speaker to “play jazz music” and hip hop music played instead. Consumers don’t want the speaker to misunderstand their commands when they’re actually spending money on shopping. Adoption will occur, but only as the tech becomes accurate.
Voice commerce will take off when the Powers That Be understand that the human decision to purchase is not based on linear decision trees. Rather it is based on a cognitive process, human emotion driven by individual sensory preferences. Visual is only one aspect of the sensory profile of a product. Voice commerce will take off when technologies are implemented by Alexa et.al. eliciting individual human preference intelligence used as an agent to filter through millions and millions of individual sensory profiled product SKUs. No visuals needed. Retail product feeds are jam-packed with sensory data waiting to be translated into sensory intelligence. It is WAY past time for retailers to apply retail common sense to the digital world.
“It is WAY past time for retailers to apply retail common sense to the digital world.” Spot on!
Conversational voice shopping just feels natural so yes, I expect it to gain adoption, however the real question is in what product categories. There are certain product categories where shoppers simply must see the item before committing to buy. For commodity household items – cleaning products, batteries, etc. – especially products you already know very well, yes, consumers will buy them via voice. Alexa devices are present in almost every room of our home and are mostly used for music, news, and weather, as well as telling the kids a bedtime story. When it comes to shopping, we’ve only used them to reorder items like batteries and the occasional cleaning product. Of course, we’ve also succumbed to asking Alexa about the latest deals, particularly during Prime Day – however, we didn’t buy any of them. Discovery of new, unfamiliar products is still a bit too unnatural without a screen to see the item so there are some definite hurdles to overcome to make this as mainstream as a smartphone!
It’s a matter of hitting critical mass. The numbers don’t lie. Shopping through a smart device is becoming more popular. Think about how the airlines taught most of us to book online and check-in online. The same thing will happen with voice shopping.
I’ve become more confident, if that’s even possible.
While “omnichannel” — Lord, how I loathe that word — promoters keep arguing about designing antiquated platform-based solutions, they are missing a critical point, interfaces trump platforms every day. I’ve boiled this down to a handy, easy to remember acronym — ITIS — which stands for, “It’s The Interface Stupid.”
Smart speakers are not limited, (at least in theory) by channel. There’s no reason Alexa couldn’t place an order to be picked up at an IGA instead of being delivered by Amazon.
And nothing is easier than talking, especially if smart speakers REALLY become smart. Why type? It’s a less pragmatic interface, and humans are all about following the path of least resistance.
I know all the arguments. What about Alexa, Siri, and the whole digital speaker sorority “eavesdropping” on your most intimate moments? What about demented grandparents ordering nukes off the Internet? And, how about those darn kids who order the strangest things?
All easily worked around today with existing technology.
A special note about privacy. Every second, lots of people send all their financial information to folks they’ve never met. It’s called online shopping, and it’s a thing.
And how many times have you been sitting on an airplane, or at a coffee shop, or just walking down the street and heard somebody happily and loudly blaring out their credit card information? Privacy it seems, is in the mind of the beholder.
I’ve been saying that voice activation was the almost final frontier for over 20 years and nothing has happened in those two decades to slow my enthusiasm. Oh, you might ask, what is the final frontier? Well, for now, it would be some direct mind-to-computer interface — maybe through implants. Early versions of that technology are available now. But who knows what the future will bring?
And I can’t wait for the day my friend! This from the man whose favorite saying is:
“I have time for neither man, beast nor machine who isn’t intelligent enough to do what I was thinking, as opposed to what I actually said.”
Now, I can think of some issues with that — but…
Shopping by voice works for some basic scenarios, but it will never capture the majority of shopping. I do think adoption will accelerate from here when more cars are equipped, but then it will hit a plateau and level off.
Once upon a time did we ask “Have you become more or less confident that PCs will become a major driver of shopping activity?” Or later, “Have you become more or less confident that smart phones will become a major driver of shopping activity?”
In answering this question, consider not the limitations of the smart speakers that we have today, but the innovative progress from that first mobile phone to today’s smartphones. There is no reason to believe that the smart speaker won’t innovate in the same way.
Imagine as technology becomes more integrated, you walk into the room and say “let’s go shopping” to you smart voice device. Your TV screen lights up and you are on your way. In essence, all we are talking about is a voice device replacing a keyboard.
Gene,
And that’s the real point. The easier the interface — and what, for most people, is easier than talking — the more robust the application over time.
Love your first paragraph. Really says it all.
Isn’t this really about convenience? When shopping by voice is more convenient than pulling out a smartphone to buy a given item, that purchase will move to voice shopping from mobile shopping.
Today, this works for simple items like soap, batteries, etc. Not so much for apparel — but what happens when the AI assistant knows what brands you like, what size you wear, and what colors/styles you like? You can see this beginning with items like socks and underwear potentially, then moving on to basics.
Some items, like Cathy’s dining room set, might be too much of a stretch for quite some time. However, it wasn’t too long ago we were having these same conversations about Amazon dash buttons and IoT based shopping and replenishment.
As each modality becomes more convenient than the previous one, shoppers mindsets will shift and adoption will increase.
At some point, we’ll also have to stop referring to these things as “smart speakers” since that implies they’re just an advanced music playing device. It’s a bit misleading, and you could imagine a survey asking a series of questions related to shopping by voice with a “smart speaker” as being misleading to many consumers.
Yes, Ricardo, I don’t know where the term came from. “Smart speakers.” Like “smart phones”?
The ability for smart speakers to better interact with screens may likely be the acceleration that allows it to move beyond simply an entertainment device to an actual shopping enabler. It allows customers to overcome any uncertainties by being actually able to “see” products and pricing before giving the “order” command. Especially for basics and commodity goods that could be prompted by AI infused “auto-replenishment” nudges.
As digital assistants continue to become more mainstream and consumers become accustomed to new behaviors, researching and shopping by voice command will replace the “big browser experience” as the main form of search.
With more than 32% of U.S. consumers now owning a smart speaker (according to research by Adobe Analytics), and growing quickly, it is easy to see the possibilities. As consumers become more comfortable with digital assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa, conversational commerce will evolve to become an expected mode of communication and commerce for consumers.
I believe what is hampering more widespread adoption is the “big brother” fear that someone is listening to whatever is being said in range of the speaker. Privacy is a big concern here and needs to be addressed before more widespread adoption, implicit in its capabilities, will be realized.
Voice is a natural interactive communication medium. Human-computer interfaces are evolving and will increase in adoption as long as they bring greater (and redefine) convenience, speed, and accuracy. Shopping is one of many existing applications for the voice interfaces and I expect it to catch on beyond simple purchases and to more categories. Also, and as disturbing as this may be to some, they can create a trusted, personalized connection, and even be considered a member of the family.
Think of the voice interface as a 21st century consumer operating system. It’s highly personal, fast, increasingly loaded with the latest AI capabilities with real-time processing, and the full potential to be fully embedded in one’s daily life. Control the voice interface and you “own” the future. But there’s a huge caveat.
Before that can be realized, we will have to make explicit — and solve — the very thorny issues of privacy, and data ownership and control. Without a clear, gobbledygook-free privacy policy and a new data paradigm shift that privileges consumers, the promise of the new compute interface will fail to launch. Can companies still gain insight and develop new business models and revenue streams in a consumer-friendly data ownership model? It’s absolutely possible for businesses to thrive, but it will require a very different and highly disruptive trust paradigm (even by today standard) and narrative.
Yes, I am confident that voice assistants and voice commerce will play a significant role in the shoppers path-to-purchase in the future. Voice commerce is frictionless and makes shopping faster and easier. Adaption by consumers is important and already taking place, as Jaimie Chung states … “New users are testing out the shopping-related features of their devices, and early adopters continue to utilize voice to search for products, ask for prices, and more.”
Today, brands and businesses need to create content for their products and services to be found through voice commerce. When 5G rolls out and all of our connected IoT devices are super fast and most smartphones are AR enabled, voice commerce will be a significant factor.
Wow it took some time for me to scroll and digest all the great interactions in this thread. If only my smart speaker could have just read it to me….
Kudos to Ryan for calling out “the whole digital speaker sorority” in his comments. My favorite phrase in the whole thread.
I agree with others here that these devices are (so far) better suited for keeping shopping lists and item-replenishment ordering and not too useful for browsing higher-consideration goods.
Yes, newer devices with screens may change the game somewhat — but aren’t those really just tablets on tables? I can do all that stuff on a refurbished 7-inch Fire that cost me 25 bucks on Woot. And I can carry it around the house.
But … I don’t. At least not regularly. I don’t think I’m a Luddite. It’s just that the use cases are still in their infancy and it will take millions of consumer interactions for these platforms to refine their functionality. It will also take millions of interactions for consumers to refine and adopt new behaviors.
Voice shopping is definitely “a thing” but we can’t know exactly what it’s going to look like in another year or two.
I personally think home automation is the killer-app for voice speakers.
Time is the ultimate currency. The winner will be the technology that saves time while fulfilling ones desires comfortably and seamlessly. Voice is fine for one-off purchases of regularly acquired products. I don’t see it as the long-term victor.