<story><title>Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/tech/amazon-alexa-devices-echo-losses-strategy-25f2581a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bluSCALE4</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think any of that is true. If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. Why? Because Costco has proven itself trustworthy of a blind repeat purchase. You could trust the price you&amp;#x27;re paying is typical and fair. Amazon on the other hand...</text></item><item><author>paxys</author><text>The core issue is that Amazon envisioned Alexa as a product that would help it increase sales. Smart home features were always an afterthought. How convenient would it be if people could shout &amp;quot;Alexa order me Tide Pods&amp;quot; from wherever they were in their home and the order got magically processed? That demo definitely got applause from a boardroom full of execs.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that consumers don&amp;#x27;t behave like that. This is also why Amazon&amp;#x27;s Dash buttons failed. I always want to see a page with the product details and price before I click &amp;quot;buy&amp;quot;. Reducing the number of clicks is not going to make me change my decision and suddenly order more things.&lt;p&gt;If they want to salvage Alexa, they need to forget shopping and start doubling down on the smart home and assistant experience. The tech is still pretty much where it was in 2014. Alexa can set timers and tell me the weather, and...that&amp;#x27;s basically it. Make it a value add in my life and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t mind paying a subscription fee for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>noveltyaccount</author><text>To build on the Costco analogy: for any given product category they typically only have three specific options: good, better, best. I could tell Costco bot that I need AA batteries and it would ask me if I prefer Duracell, Kirkland brand, or cheapest. I trust that either of them will be plenty good, so I would say cheapest.&lt;p&gt;Amazon has a vastly different experience with thousands of indistinguishable Chinese knockoffs. I can only ask Alexa for a very specific product, otherwise I don&amp;#x27;t trust what I&amp;#x27;ll get. I use Alexa to add products to my cart, which serves as a reminder that I need to do a little more shopping from my phone or PC.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/tech/amazon-alexa-devices-echo-losses-strategy-25f2581a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bluSCALE4</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think any of that is true. If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. Why? Because Costco has proven itself trustworthy of a blind repeat purchase. You could trust the price you&amp;#x27;re paying is typical and fair. Amazon on the other hand...</text></item><item><author>paxys</author><text>The core issue is that Amazon envisioned Alexa as a product that would help it increase sales. Smart home features were always an afterthought. How convenient would it be if people could shout &amp;quot;Alexa order me Tide Pods&amp;quot; from wherever they were in their home and the order got magically processed? That demo definitely got applause from a boardroom full of execs.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that consumers don&amp;#x27;t behave like that. This is also why Amazon&amp;#x27;s Dash buttons failed. I always want to see a page with the product details and price before I click &amp;quot;buy&amp;quot;. Reducing the number of clicks is not going to make me change my decision and suddenly order more things.&lt;p&gt;If they want to salvage Alexa, they need to forget shopping and start doubling down on the smart home and assistant experience. The tech is still pretty much where it was in 2014. Alexa can set timers and tell me the weather, and...that&amp;#x27;s basically it. Make it a value add in my life and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t mind paying a subscription fee for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AlexandrB</author><text>Yes, Costco is like the opposite of the Amazon experience. Costco will only carry a few brands of any given item, but they&amp;#x27;re all generally pretty good with nothing drop-shipped from a random AliExpress vendor. Their house brand - Kirkland - is pretty good as well. It&amp;#x27;s a curated set of products with a relatively small number of SKUs vs. Amazon&amp;#x27;s flea-market-like experience.</text></comment>