Report says voice commerce is all talk




Shopping via voice assistant has become one of the most discussed trends in the world of retail technology. But recently-released numbers indicate that, at least for now, predictions of the ascendency of Alexa voice commerce could be all talk.
Only about two percent of the 50 million people who own and use Alexa-ready devices have used them to make a purchase in 2018 so far, according to The Information. And of those who did use Alexa to shop, 90 percent did not try it more than once. Far more frequently, voice assistants are being used for simple tasks like playing music and getting weather reports.
Confirmation of a low rate of adoption for voice shopping comes as the two major players in the space, Amazon.com and Google, have been competing to bring retailers and shoppers into their voice shopping ecosystems.
For instance, Amazon recently announced that it is introducing the ability for Alexa users to add Prime Now orders from Whole Foods to their shopping carts, as reported on Venture Beat. Last year, Walmart inked a deal with Google to make hundreds of thousands of items available via Google Assistant.
Since the advent of voice assistants and moves by major tech companies to get people shopping on their platforms, there has been widespread speculation on what a voice-based future may look like.
Some have argued that, in a world where voice assistants are the main facilitators of purchases, the big tech companies will have ultimate control over which CPG staples consumers purchase, requiring many manufacturers to establish direct-to-consumer relationships to survive.
The model of ordering Prime Now products from Whole Foods described by Venture Beat does have the potential to generate this type of brand lock-in. When consumers utter generic terms such as “cheese,” “meat” or “milk”, Alexa picks products based on previous order history and the behavior of other customers. Alexa does ask the customer for confirmation after each item is added to the list nor allow for a review of the full order at checkout.
The model could be even rougher on CPGs if Amazon were to prioritize its private label products as default items.
- The Reality Behind Voice Shopping Hype [Free Signup Required] – The Information
- Amazon brings Whole Foods voice shopping to Alexa – RetailWire
- Will the Walmart/Google voice deal give Amazon’s Alexa a run for its money? – RetailWire
- How disruptive is Alexa to CPG brands? – RetailWire
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What would have to change to get people to shop via Alexa and other voice assistants? Will the voice commerce revolution come off as planned? If so, how might it affect CPG brand marketing?
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32 Comments on "Report says voice commerce is all talk"
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Managing Director, GlobalData
This underlines how the impact of some technologies in retail are over-hyped to the point of silliness. The question is, why would people shop by voice? For many products there is no need as shopping online with the click of a mouse or the tap of a phone is already easy enough. In other categories, the ability to see the product — either physically or virtually — is important and voice does not deliver that.
That doesn’t mean voice doesn’t have a place in shopping: search, querying prices, checking on order status, etc. are all things voice can help with. But actually buying a product, not so much.
Co-founder, RSR Research
I agree. And it’s a captive audience for Amazon. Probably marginally more likely to be successful than the unexplainable Dash buttons.
Senior Retail Writer
I also agree. Being able to see a product, online or in-store is such an important part of purchasing. People will use voice as part of the shopping process, but probably not to actually complete the transaction.
Consultant, Strategist, Tech Innovator, UX Evangelist
Unless you feel the need to change brands, how many times must you see or experience toilet paper, canned soup, or boxer shorts? I think many people are like me and have more fulfilling interests and time constraints of more value than shopping for what most goods are realistically (outside of hobbies or gifts): consumable necessities and mundane items. So for me and them, a couple of quick phrases to make a purchase from anywhere is potentially extremely convenient, extremely fast, and adds a lot of life value.
Managing Director, GlobalData
Yet the vast majority of people are not using voice.
Perhaps the issue is in the fact that most people will order soup and toilet paper as part of a wider grocery shop and doing a larger shop is not quite as convenient and easy when using voice. Besides if you want über-convenience, you can initiate automated re-ordering.
As for boxer shorts, I take the point — but many people do like to see (digitally or physically) apparel before purchasing, even for mundane items.
Consultant, Strategist, Tech Innovator, UX Evangelist
Neil — I’m not sure what your basis is for assessing voice shopping and if you are only gauging voice interfaces, AAs, and voice shopping by a couple of current implementations by companies with very jaded interests, because that would be a short-sighted view of the next decade or more. Alexa and Google Assistant today are very clumsy and absolutely don’t leverage AI in a meaningful or convenient user-centered manner, despite Amazon fanboy pundits writing otherwise.
Maybe you aren’t familiar with the early days of the Internet (see my comment below), but in the ’90s, similar arguments were made against the web and e-commerce and I think it has improved markedly, will continue to, and will continue to erode physical retail, despite some product categories that surely will always be best experienced in person.
Also, have a look at what is being touted as a seamless commerce experience: I see it as a clunky early implementation that voice interaction would unquestionably streamline.
President, Protonik
What’s interesting is that the arguments against the web remain valid. It has turned into a buying mechanism — but even 20 years removed it hasn’t been able to become a good shopping mechanism.
Many of those arguments were made against the incredible late 1990s claims that “everything” would become online shopping … That stores would disappear because they’re not needed, etc.
Yet while there are category exceptions, overall online shopping after 20 years remains around 10% of total revenue.
Where what you suggest is valid is that voice technology might become better and that might help it expand some. So, in 20 years, perhaps 5% of voice devices will be used for shopping.
Consultant, Strategist, Tech Innovator, UX Evangelist
President, Protonik
As a quick observation, Ken, it sounds like what you call “shopping” is really buying. Once a purchase is “recurring” there’s no shopping involved — perhaps some price checking.
Consultant, Strategist, Tech Innovator, UX Evangelist
Managing Director, GlobalData
Co-founder, RSR Research
I don’t know. How many times do you want to see if Amazon has changed the price? Like every day?
Director, Retail Market Insights, Aptos
As I see it, there are two things holding back conversational commerce: the challenges of product discovery and (ironically) the complexity of the process. Until product discovery gets easier, Alexa will be limited to FMCG and replenishment orders. And in that time, Amazon will capture the lion’s share of the commerce, because ordering via voice today is pretty complex. All skills require very specific commands, and for infrequently-used skills, it can be hard to remember the exact syntax required to execute that skill. So both things need to improve before mass adoption can occur, in my opinion.
Vice President of Marketing, OrderDynamics
Clearly it will take more time for adoption than originally expected. From experience, Google Home does grow on you. It may take a while for people to get used to asking voice assistants general questions, and asking them to do simple tasks for them, before the commerce part starts to really grow.
It feels like a parallel to wireless data in the late ’90s. It was the breakout year for wireless data — for about a decade. It feels like déjà vu.
What this does is buy CPG brands and retailers the opportunity to learn. We need to figure out how to make sure voice-commerce does not gravitate to just the lowest price, or Amazon’s private label brands. The questions will be — what are the levers that drive voice commerce search? How do you influence it? CAN you influence it other than by offering the lowest price (for automated purchases)? How do marketers play the NEW SEO game of achieving top ranking for voice commerce?
Managing Partner, Advanced Simulations
I have to agree with Neil. This may be another case of technology looking for a problem.
Co-founder, CART
Xerox thought the personal computer wouldn’t amount to much in 1960.
Consultant, Strategist, Tech Innovator, UX Evangelist
Principal, Retail Technology Group
We have thrown a lot of new technology at the consumer in the last five years and we continue that trend. It takes time and a desire to try new things before they become generally adopted by the consuming public. Voice ordering will happen over time, with the upcoming younger generations eventually making it mundane.
There is a possibility, however, that if customers are not allowed to specify brand or re-order (the previously-ordered brand), external forces may decide what they want the consumer to buy. CPG brands may start paying online retailers for preferred placement on voice-ordering systems like they do on supermarket shelves.
Founding Partner, Merchandising Metrics
I’m guessing this is generational. People over 40 might not embrace it quickly or fully, but I suspect that has nothing to do with how Millennials and younger generations will embrace voice commerce. Don’t want to be heard shopping in public spaces? I saw a gizmo the other day — a mouth mask if you will. It mutes your voice to the outside world when you’re on the phone. Office mates hear nothing. That may remove some of the reluctance to voice shop. It sounds nutty, but sometimes that’s the gears of evolution grinding away.
Principal, KIZER & BENDER Speaking
Sometimes I think companies look for too many options for technologies: “It can do this and this and this and … “ but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the consumer.
If most users use voice-activated assistants for simple tasks, maybe that’s all we want them to do. I’m with the rest of the BrainTrust here: Alexa et al. may have a place in my shopping research, but not as the final path to purchase piece.
Marketing Strategy Lead - Retail, Travel & Distribution, Verizon
Voice-assisted shopping has two big barriers to overcome: complexity and changing habits. Complexity involves making it easier to make sure the voice assistant gets exactly the right product that the customer wants. This is much easier for items consumers buy routinely, but first-time orders are challenging. Another element of complexity is that if it takes longer or is frustrating, consumers will give up.
From a habit perspective, consumers have their own buy habits and processes that work best for them. Trying something new requires additional effort and effort is time, and nobody has a lot of time to spare. To accelerate adoption, retailers will need to offer special discounts on first orders through voice assistants to get more consumers to try the technology and cross their fingers that some of them will adopt it.
It is a long road ahead for voice commerce and it is unclear when, or if, it will be a relevant part of shopping.
Chief Executive Officer, Progress Retail
I believe voice could be the intermediary technology that drives the next massive change in commerce. As a metaphor, in computing and file storage there was the floppy disk (1.5MB) and then there was the CD-ROM (700MB), but many people forget the ZIP drive that was massively influential in bridging that gap in consumer need with capacity ranging from 100MB-750MB. This hardware eventually fell out of favor. I believe the same is true with voice assistants in their current form, as the technology could quickly evolve to in-ear, optical (applying the visual product element in multi-dimensions or via AR), or a wrist solution with holographic capacity. Sounds a little Star Trekky perhaps, but not far from reality.
Chief Data Officer, CaringBridge
On the scale of technology adoption described by Geoffrey Moore in his book “Crossing the Chasm”, voice ordering is at the early adopter stage. The early majority are waiting for the early adopters to spread the word that the technology is ready for prime time. I have no doubt that voice ordering via Alexa, Google or Siri will become widespread. The question is just when the tipping point comes. Given the rapid pace of technology adoption today, I would imagine that we will see voice ordering becoming prevalent within the next two years.
For packaged goods brand marketing, there will be more emphasis placed on marketing via these devices. There is also substantial risk, as noted in the article, that the technology providers may substitute their private label products whenever a brand is not designated by a customer.
Chief Amazement Officer, Shepard Presentations, LLC
“Voice commerce” is far from being the norm. The tipping point is not here, but it is getting closer even if the adoption is slower than anticipated. People just need to try it, have a good experience and have it become a habit. It takes time to form habits, and using the voice commands on Alexa, Siri, etc. will take time.