Amazon Aims to Make Shopping Even Lazier With New Dash Buttons

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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Amazon Aims to Make Shopping Even Lazier With New Dash Buttons

Amazon's Dash program will give Prime customers programmable buttons they can position around the house for one-push instant purchases.

Back when I was a kid in the far off past of the 1990s, shopping kind of sucked. You had to load up into the car, drive yourself out to your nearest mall and then browse around hoping to find the thing you were looking for. Or, worse, you could order something from a catalog and then spend weeks waiting for it to show up. Nowadays, the internet has made buying things so easy that, with a good TV show and a comfy chair, the act of shopping can practically become a form of home entertainment. Now, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/amazon>Amazon hopes to make it even easier with its new Dash button program.

Announced on its site today, the Dash program will give <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/amazon%20prime?os=amazon+prime>Amazon Prime members the ability to order branded buttons that they can position around their homes and then use to order automatic refills of their favorite products. For instance, if you use Bounty paper towels, you could order a Bounty button to put in your kitchen. When you notice you're running low, you could push it to signal Amazon that you need more. The company would then process an automatic order of your preferred Bounty product and ship it out to you. The buttons will be programmable using the Amazon phone app, making it possible to fill your home with an entire slew of "buy now" buttons that keep you from ever running out of your favorite products again. It will even include built-in restrictions to make sure you don't wind up with multiple orders.

Speaking as someone who constantly forgets to buy things when they run low, the very idea of this has me excited. Granted, making it even easier to shop online could have some bad ramifications for already ailing physical retailers. That said, I'm currently imagining a world where I never run out of cat food/garbage bags/Windex/diapers/etc. and, I have to say, it's looks pretty incredible. Unfortunately, Dash is currently invite only. That said, Amazon hopes to eventually expand it to include its entire customer base, Prime and otherwise. If you're interested in landing yourself an invitation you can apply for one on <a href=https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button/ref=br_imp_ara-1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-hero-1&pf_rd_r=1J9B8P71WXSJ9V59JFBA&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2068482462&pf_rd_i=desktop>the main Amazon website.

Source: <a href=https://www.yahoo.com/tech/press-to-pay-amazon-dash-button-dispatches-115073933334.html>Yahoo


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Veldel

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I saw it and already requested a invite a while ago I hope to get it I need a more lazy life XD
 

Ldude893

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Apr 2, 2010
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My my, is it April 1st in Australia already?

EDIT: Huh, it's actually real. Kind of confusing to pick a day like this to make such an announcement.
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Not for me im afraid, theres a Tesco just a 5 minuite walk down the road from where i live and they have damn near everything i could ever need on short notice. They stay open quite late too.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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Jan 23, 2013
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Buying basic supplies through Amazon, because the world really needs people throwing out more shipping boxes. If the greedy bastards running brick and mortar shops would lower their prices and treat their employees better (so customers aren't put off by their attitude and the stores' conditions), this Amazon wouldn't be growing nearly at the rate it is.

So, what's stopping the little tykes from pressing the button 3 dozen times (each), and massive amounts of product showing up at your door in two days? Is there a limit that can be set on how much of certain products can be ordered in a certain time frame?

Also, I don't like two physical trait about the button. One is the battery apparently isn't replaceable. From the Yahoo link: "When it dies, you get a new one." Are they once again promoting such wasteful practices? Hopefully, this market test also means there units being sent out are prototypes, and some better designs come forth.

The other is a necessity this kind of device on a home network, WiFi. The amount of WiFi only tech crap is getting huge. If these buttons don't support 5GHz, they sure won't work in my area. The 2.4 GHz band in my area is saturated with noise from many sources, making the old 2.4GHz WiFi a shot in the dark, with a broken toy bow and arrow. I'm sure some other people have similar issues just getting their tablets and 3DSs to work. (Gigabit Ethernet FTW.)

TL;DR: I hate this idea. People are getting too damned lazy, when they might even have a phone with the Amazon App, or a piece of paper.
 

Destal

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Jul 8, 2009
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Hairless Mammoth said:
Buying basic supplies through Amazon, because the world really needs people throwing out more shipping boxes. If the greedy bastards running brick and mortar shops would lower their prices and treat their employees better (so customers aren't put off by their attitude and the stores' conditions), this Amazon wouldn't be growing nearly at the rate it is.

So, what's stopping the little tykes from pressing the button 3 dozen times (each), and massive amounts of product showing up at your door in two days? Is there a limit that can be set on how much of certain products can be ordered in a certain time frame?

Also, I don't like two physical trait about the button. One is the battery apparently isn't replaceable. From the Yahoo link: "When it dies, you get a new one." Are they once again promoting such wasteful practices? Hopefully, this market test also means there units being sent out are prototypes, and some better designs come forth.

The other is a necessity this kind of device on a home network, WiFi. The amount of WiFi only tech crap is getting huge. If these buttons don't support 5GHz, they sure won't work in my area. The 2.4 GHz band in my area is saturated with noise from many sources, making the old 2.4GHz WiFi a shot in the dark, with a broken toy bow and arrow. I'm sure some other people have similar issues just getting their tablets and 3DSs to work. (Gigabit Ethernet FTW.)

TL;DR: I hate this idea. People are getting too damned lazy, when they might even have a phone with the Amazon App, or a piece of paper.
If you read the article, they mentioned specifically you can place restrictions on it to prevent multiple orders.

That said, I think the idea is totally awesome. There are so many times where I see that I am out of something and forget to write it down on a list only to curse when I go for that item again and it's gone.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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Destal said:
If you read the article, they mentioned specifically you can place restrictions on it to prevent multiple orders.

That said, I think the idea is totally awesome. There are so many times where I see that I am out of something and forget to write it down on a list only to curse when I go for that item again and it's gone.
Whoops, I will admit I was in a rush (antivirus wanted a reboot) and scanned through everything (Yahoo, Amazon, here).

I still think people should consider using a notepad in their homes, or even the note taking features of their smartphones. I, too, forget to write thing down, but try to have notes tapes to my monitor for when I visit some industrial supply sites and several shopping/to do lists on my phone.

I won't stop people from enjoying what is basically the real life "easy button" from the Staples marketing campaign, but I had to complain about the ridiculous wastefulness that Amazon promotes. (It would be neat if they started a program were you could ship back boxes and packaging materials.)
 

NickBrahz

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Ldude893 said:
My my, is it April 1st in Australia already?

EDIT: Huh, it's actually real. Kind of confusing to pick a day like this to make such an announcement.
I refuse to believe it is real, i mean who takes any sort of press release/announcement seriously on April 1st, and if for some reason it is real and they decided to announce it on this date then they really are run by monkeys in suits.
 

batti

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NickBrahz said:
Ldude893 said:
My my, is it April 1st in Australia already?

EDIT: Huh, it's actually real. Kind of confusing to pick a day like this to make such an announcement.
I refuse to believe it is real, i mean who takes any sort of press release/announcement seriously on April 1st, and if for some reason it is real and they decided to announce it on this date then they really are run by monkeys in suits.
The Square-Enix merger and Gmail were both announced to the world on April 1st.
 

Eri

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Feb 21, 2009
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The Rogue Wolf said:
It's going to take one child/household pet/angry spider pounding the button over and over again to show the problem inherent in this system.
Except no. If you had bothered to read the article.
It will even include built-in restrictions to make sure you don't wind up with multiple orders.
 

FPLOON

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Jul 10, 2013
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And so it begins...

OT: Meh... I would only use it for cosmetics and shit... and, even then, I could just walk to the store and get them quicker than pushing the Dash button...

Then again, I don't do Prime outside of Metroid Prime, so there's that...
 

Ticklefist

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Jul 19, 2010
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Superfluous. People have to go to the grocery store. It's not an optional inconvenience.
 

RicoADF

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Jun 2, 2009
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Ticklefist said:
Superfluous. People have to go to the grocery store. It's not an optional inconvenience.
Actually in my area the stores offer home delivery from their website, so no you don't have to :p

I don't see myself using this and share the concern regarding people getting even more lazy, but the convenience....
 

loa

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Jan 28, 2012
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Oh my god do people not go to grocery stores anymore?
This is terrible.
 

flying_whimsy

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Travis Fischer said:
Oh man... as though Prime didn't make impulse buys easy enough.
Exactly. It makes us look lazy, but everyone seems to be overlooking the inherent greed here.

You get that button, and not only are you guaranteeing amazon that you'll give them money, but you aren't even going to try and shop around to stretch those dollars. This is the same kind of thinking that keeps people going to walmart even when the average shopping trip there isn't cheaper than anywhere else.

It's a brilliant business move: it targets people that have more money (the prime members), it guarantees income, it stifles competition, and it does it all by giving the illusion of convenience.

Between this and amazon's constant whining about not being allowed to crash their drones into our houses every once in a while (you know those drones won't be perfect), I haven't been too thrilled with them as of late.