Amazon recently added several shopping-related features to Alexa+, turning it into a powerful shopping assistant. These features include real-time delivery tracking, shopping reminders, adding items to an upcoming delivery, and gift recommendations.
These features give customers more control and insight into their shopping, while also enhancing and streamlining the overall experience. As a result of this news, ecommerce brands need to adjust their strategies to increase the likelihood of being included in the recommendations.
Transforming Alexa+ Into a Shopping Assistant
Amazon’s AI assistant, Alexa+, has gotten new shopping features in both the USA and Canada, aimed at improving the shopping experience of customers. These new additions come on the heels of other things Amazon has done to turn Alexa+ into a great shopping sidekick, including automated deal tracking and automatic purchases.
However, this newest move by Amazon is focused on turning the company’s Echo Show devices into shopping hubs, featuring an interface that the company calls “Shopping Essentials”.
The “Shopping Essentials” Dashboard
In this dashboard, users can do a wide variety of things to improve and/or streamline their shopping experience, right from home. The Shopping Essentials dashboard lets customers:
- Track deliveries in real-time
- View recent order information
- See reminders about household essentials
- View shopping list and saved items
- See products, add them to their cart, and check out
- Add items to an upcoming delivery at any time, as long as it hasn’t left the warehouse
Accessing this new dashboard and experience is as easy as all a customer needs to do is say “Open Shopping Essentials” or “Alexa, where’s my stuff?”. The company is also planning to add a widget to the home screen on Echo devices, as well.
Gift Recommendations Through Amazon
In addition to all of these features, Alexa+ can also recommend gifts for others. All you need to do is describe who you’re looking to get a gift for, or the occasion/reason for the gift, and Amazon will display product suggestions organized in different categories on the screen.
For example, you could say that you’re looking for a Father’s Day gift for your dad who loves golf, or a birthday gift for your niece who loves unicorns, and Alexa+ would provide you with a collection of potential options.
This move is especially important for ecommerce brands, as it’s another way to get your product in front of even more eyes. However, it’s not guaranteed that your products will appear in the results, even if they match the customer’s request or preferences closely.
To improve your chances of having products get recommended by this new Amazon feature, you should:
- Optimize your product listing by using keywords, adding informative descriptions, using clear and natural language, and ensuring they’re as detailed as possible.
- Use high-quality images that show off your product.
- Consider providing answers or guidance related to common customer questions.
- Try to keep the listing as accurate as possible in terms of pricing, availability, product features, and more.
- Ensure that your description or listing not only mentions the features your product offers, but also the benefits it provides and the pain points it addresses.
