IoT in the home lets customers order products at the touch of a button.
Amazon has bought its IoT-enabled Amazon Dash button to the UK that orders household goods just by pressing a button.
Until now, the tech has only been available in the US, but more than 40 products in the UK will offer buttons so Amazon Prime customers can quickly replenish everyday products.
Each button costs £4.99 each and among the firms included in UK launch are Fairy, Andrex and Pedigree. The buttons can be placed beside a customer’s toilet, fridge or other appliances. With the initial launch, Amazon is offering a £4.99 discount on the first order, effectively meaning the button comes for free.
Each button can order one product from a specific company so anyone buying multiple products from the same manufacturer will have to purchase a button for each product or reset the product line through Amazon’s app.
Prime Customers
The button is available only to Amazon’s Prime customers, which means that they can order the buttons and have them delivered the next day.
Daniel Rausch, director of Amazon Dash, said: “Dash Buttons offer the convenience of 1-Click shopping from anywhere in the home – they can be placed near those frequently used items you don’t want to run out of, and when you see supplies running low, the Dash Button makes it easier than ever to order more. Just press the button and your item is on its way.”
At the same time, Amazon has also launched its Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) in the UK. The cloud-based service enables manufacturers to enable their connected devices to automatically reorder household products from Amazon using a set of APIs. The online retailer said the service would enable, for example, a washing machine to reorder laundry detergent or a printer to reorder ink. It said the service would mean that customers would no longer have to worry about ordering replacements for home appliances.
Amazon is working with Bosch, Siemens, Samsung and Whirlpool to add their code to the connected products.
Programmatic Commerce
Neil Stewart, CEO at Salmon, told Internet of Business that the UK launch of Amazon Dash is a clear sign that we are entering a new age of digital shopping, powered by connected devices.
“This new era of Programmatic Commerce will take shopping through connected devices one step further, with smart devices making purchases automatically on behalf of their owners. For example, a user’s coffee machine will recognise that it is low on beans and re-order the owner’s favourite coffee. Unlike Amazon’s new service which relies on a button being pressed, Programmatic Commerce will allow consumers to enter pre-defined parameters that inform the machine’s purchases, such as their preferred brand or price,” he said.