How Amazon Is Making Impulse Shopping Insanely Easy

ByALYSSA NEWCOMB ABCNews logo
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Amazon Fire Phone

One-click ordering snags plenty of impulse shoppers on Amazon, but the online juggernaut seems hungry for more.

Amazon unveiled its new Fire phone on Wednesday, a shopping-ready device that just happens to be able to make calls and send messages.

While the smartphone boasts plenty of features that make it stand out from Apple and Samsung, there's nothing more telling about Amazon's hopes for the phone than a button and technology CEO Jeff Bezos introduced as "Firefly."

The new feature, which is similar to Google Glass, will allow users to identify almost any product -- from a book to a game or a container of kosher salt. The Fire phone will then be able to direct users to Amazon to make purchases, making impulse buys even easier.

Read More: Amazon Unveils New 3-D Fire Phone

#AmazonCart

Amazon and Twitter unveiled a partnership in May that brings online shopping to your social media feed -- if you don't mind letting the world see what you're buying.

Users can link their Twitter and Amazon accounts and can automatically add items to their cart by responding to a tweet with an Amazon product link and the hashtag #AmazonCart.

How does it work?

You link your Twitter and Amazon accounts -- then, for example, order your favorite team's World Cup shirt.

Next, you reply to the tweet with the hashtag #AmazonCart.

Seconds later, you receive a reply from Amazon that the shirt has been added to your shopping cart, along with a handy reminder to proceed to the Amazon website to complete the transaction.

Read More: Everyone Can See What's In Your Amazon Cart -- If You Use the New Twitter Hashtag

Drone Delivery

Okay, so this one hasn't gotten FAA approval yet, but how enticing would it be to know you could order something from Amazon and have it delivered to your door -- via drone -- in 30 minutes or less?

"It looks like science fiction, but it's real," Amazon says on its website of its Amazon Prime Air, which the company hopes to roll out in 2015, granted it passes a bunch of rules and regulations.

Read More: Why Jeff Bezos Thinks Drone Delivery Is the Future of Shopping

Related Topics