Amazon.com Intros Service Allowing Purchases Via Text Message

Amazon.com strengthened the link between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley this week, sending more than a message that mobile transactions and marketing have arrived on cell phones.

The new service, called TextBuyIt, lets customers with Amazon accounts find and buy products in less than one minute via text message through Amazon's Web site. Using Amazon's service simply requires consumers to send a text message to "AMAZON" (262966) with the product name, search term, UPC or ISBN.

The reply message includes options to buy one or more items, request more information about a listed item, or get help. Once Amazon receives a text messaged order, the retailer calls the customer's phone to confirm. On approval, Amazon processes and ships the purchased items.

The service could push Amazon sales higher, but Jeffrey Lindsay, senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., says the move points more toward the company leading a technology revolution to increase revenue, than creating a trickling stream. "It opens an adjacent business opportunity using Amazon's traffic," he says. "They could advertise non-competitors, but I think that's the strength of other players like Google and Yahoo."

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Retailers are looking for ways to make it easy for consumers to find and purchase their products because they are counting on impulsive behavior on the part of cell phone users. On Wednesday, Yahoo introduced easy search features and voice recognition in oneSearch 2.0, trying to cut the time and effort it takes to find information on restaurants, airlines and more.

Consumers are happily addicted to thumbing text messages to each other. In 2007, U.S. cell phone subscribers sent 48.1 billion of them --up from 9.8 billion in 2005, according to a study released this week by the wireless trade association CTIA.

While Wall Street has yet to find the link between mobile financial transactions and marketing and advertising, agencies have.

Zaw Thet, CEO of 4info of Palo Alto, Calif., says the "dream goal" for marketers means closing the financial transaction from the mobile device.

"Amazon won't change the industry, but it's an important first step," he says. "It signals other retailers they must provide mobile commerce. Banks have been introducing services. The technology they use makes it easier to advertise and market to consumers because they have found a method to get people through the purchase funnel."

In addition, the retailer will be able to more easily track marketing and advertising campaigns. If Amazon targets kids 12 to 17 with incentives to buy the latest Harry Potter book, for example, it would likely ask consumers to text a keyword to a short code.

Then, Amazon could track not only companies that place advertisements, but also consumers who text a keyword to complete the transaction. "Keyword recognition will track the ads through the mobile phone to the purchase," Thet says. "Madison Avenue is a whole different world from Silicon Valley, and it helps to understand both."

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