Stop. Text. Shop.
We’ve been known to succumb to Kit-Kats and bald Britney while awaiting checkout at Target or Stop & Shop. But with Amazon’s recent launch of TextBuyIt—a service that allows customers to find and buy Amazon.com products from any mobile device via text message—our impulse buying is no longer safely confined to the bad chocolate and ratty tabs found in superstore checkout lanes.
Tech-savvy shoppers can now make purchases from Amazon.com anytime, anywhere, with a few quick taps. All you have to do is send a text to “AMAZON” (262966) with the desired product’s name or code and, the company claims, within seconds you’ll get a response with the matching product or products, along with the prices. To buy an item, you simply reply and the whole she-bang is locked down following a short call from Amazon confirming the purchase.
So while techie takeover has us mourning the days when we could justify shopping as a form of cardio, we can’t deny the fast, easy convenience of TextBuyIt. Translation: The next time you walk out of a concert completely convinced you must own the CD or you find yourself at Best Buy wanting to compare flat screen prices before forking over your credit card, you can whip out your trusty Blackberry and instant gratification is yours. Oh, and here’s the kicker—punch in a few extra numbers and the Kit-Kat can be yours too.
–-Jenna Grady
TextBuyIt, amazon.com