Click and Mortar Shopping Embracing Voice Control

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3Q 2017 | IN-4726

As Amazon acquired grocery store chain Whole Foods Market last week, the company was keen to use its new stores to promote its smart home voice control devices, Amazon Echo and Dot. The deal highlighted the growing ties between online and physical store shopping, but it also cemented a bond between voice control and shopping. Days later, Google announced a partnership with Walmart which would extend voice control from Google Home devices to extend to Walmart shopping.

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Amazon Closes Whole Foods Acquisition; Google Partners with Walmart

NEWS


As Amazon acquired grocery store chain Whole Foods Market last week, the company was keen to use its new stores to promote its smart home voice control devices, Amazon Echo and Dot. The deal highlighted the growing ties between online and physical store shopping, but it also cemented a bond between voice control and shopping. Days later, Google announced a partnership with Walmart which would extend voice control from Google Home devices to extend to Walmart shopping. 

Voice Control Devices Gearing Toward Voice Control Shopping

IMPACT


Smart home isn’t the most obvious market to be impacted by Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market. The estimated US$13.7 million deal brings the world largest online retailer a major retail store presence and in the most basic of consumer products – food. However, while Amazon launched its ownership with a host of price cuts for food items in Whole Foods stores, Amazon Echo devices, also reduced, were planted squarely in-store to draw the attention of Whole Foods shoppers. Days later Google announced a partnership with retailer Walmart which links its Google Home device to Walmart shopping.

Alexa devices were front and center on the first day of Amazon’s Whole Foods Market ownership as Amazon Echo’s and Dots were stocked in U.S. Whole Foods stores and discounted to US$99.99 and US$44.99. Both have been priced that low before over a series of promotions, but their placement in store spoke to their increasingly prominent position within Amazon’s retail strategy.

For its part, Google’s Walmart partnership will see Google’s Google Express shopping service connected with big-box retailer e-commerce operations. Beginning in September, Walmart shoppers can link their Walmart accounts to Google Express and place orders — either through voice on Google Home or by shopping on Google Express. By linking a shopper's Walmart purchase history, Google will be able to more quickly learn the customer's shopping patterns and recommend suitable products.

Speak and Mortar Shopping

COMMENTARY


Amazon is leveraging voice control in its Alexa devices as the Alexa platform is increasingly becoming the user interface for all its consumer services. Promoting its Alexa devices within its now expanded retail locations, is just the start of the integration plans Amazon has for its Whole Foods stores. Amazon is looking to fully integrate its operation into Whole Foods by supporting Amazon Prime into the Whole Foods Market point-of-sale system. That will mean Prime members will receive special savings and in-store benefits. Additional areas are expected to be in merchandising, logistics, and delivery.  With these developments in mind, Alexa increasingly then becomes a front end for grocery planning, ordering, and delivery.

While Google does not have the online retail reach of Amazon, it’s nascent Google Express platform looks poised to help many of Amazon’s physical store-front competitors compete with online sales. Google Express already offers shoppers a way to purchase from retailers including Costco, Target, Kohl’s, and Whole Foods and it is keen to promote its Google Home and the Google Assistant AI platform that supports it, as a voice control interface to those stores. The month of August even saw a promotion that waived both Google Express and Costco membership fees for shoppers ordering through its Google Home device.

Amazon has pioneered and dominated the smart home voice control front-end device market with its array of Alexa offerings, Google Home is its chief competition. By placing shopping as an increasingly key service for these devices, both companies aim to not just improve the usefulness and value of their devices, but more importantly, improve the value and the detail of the data they can collect and leverage regarding their customers. Shopping is just one of many consumer market sectors to increasingly come under the influence of voice control. With a host of new voice control devices arriving in the market, including those from Apple, Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung, Amazon and Google are showing that this is a market more about services far more than it is about devices, and the two are establishing impressive retailer rosters to underpin the continued adoption of their offerings.

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