Dive Brief:
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Amazon’s Dash program, which allows users to order everyday household items with the press of a button, are taking off, and the retailer is expanding the program. The buttons are $4.99 each, which is reimbursed upon the first order that one sends out.
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The retailer Wednesday said it’s moving the WiFi-enabled buttons out of the limited experimental phase that began earlier this summer and making them available to all Prime members, saying “it’s not an experiment anymore.”
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The pilot phase included 18 participating brands and 11 more have been added; Dash-enabled brands include Tide, Gatorade, Larabar, Maxwell House, Kraft,, Gillette, Ziploc, Hefty, Dixie, Depend, Orbit gum, and baby supplies like Huggies and Amazon’s own diapers.
Dive Insight:
Amazon’s Dash is getting consumers closer to the Internet of Things long imagined by futurists — one where your refrigerator would order milk when it sensed it was going sour.
The program isn’t exactly that. But consumers can keep a Dash button where they keep their Ziploc bags, dish detergent, or toilet paper, and when they notice they’re low or out, push the button to reorder.
When the Dash was unveiled earlier this year, many experts wondered whether Amazon’s Dash, like its Fire phone, was perhaps more about slaking Amazon’s thirst for more commerce than solving a real-world household quandary. But it seems, at least according to Amazon, which is releasing no figures on sales, the button has had a good response from users.
Indeed, with the Dash button, Amazon has eliminated a gap, essentially the time between needing something to getting it, creating, Anil Kaul, CEO of Absolutdata, told Retail Dive, a “Zero Moment of Purchase.”
“Just as Google summarized internet-driven decision making as the ‘Zero Moment of Truth,’ Amazon has created the ‘Zero Moment of Purchase,’ putting brands at the exact moment of need,” Kaul told Retail Dive. “In a Zero Moment of Purchase scenario, all other factors – coupons, packaging, advertising – become irrelevant.”
