MasterCard may have rolled out its new “selfie” verification system last month, but it’s not the only company to take consumers’ love of self portraits and turn it into a way to make money. To that end, Amazon recently filed a patent for a so-called selfie pay system. [More]
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Capital One Will Let Customers Pay Bills, Access Account Info Using Amazon Echo
By 3.11.16
You can ask Alexa to order you a pizza and get more laundry detergent, and soon, Capital One customers who own an Amazon Echo will be able to access their accounts to pay bills and get other information by speaking to their device. [More]
Who Kicked The Plug? Amazon.com Experienced Massive, Unexplained Outage
By 3.10.16
Update: Shortly after 2:40 p.m. ET, Amazon appeared to leap back to life, without any of the company’s media or social media accounts even acknowledging the outage. If we get any sort of explanation from the e-tailer, we’ll be sure to share it. [More]
Amazon Leases Planes For Air Delivery Fleet
By 3.9.16
While Amazon might not be ready to unleash its Prime Air drones into the skies just yet, that doesn’t mean the e-commerce company isn’t preparing to launch its own fleet of Amazon aircraft. The company has inked a deal to lease planes to carry out some of its fulfillment services. [More]
Amazon Debuts Its First Home-Shopping Live Show Tonight
By 3.8.16
Do you like the ability to buy almost anything instantly online but long for the pre-Internet home-shopping glory days when loud-talking, brightly outfitted semi-celebrities pushed products on live TV? Then maybe you’ll want to tune in to tonight’s debut of Amazon’s first live TV show. [More]
Amazon Will Open Its Second Real-Life Bookstore In San Diego This Summer
By 3.7.16
Last fall, Amazon took its business model offline into the real world with a bricks-and-mortar bookstore that opened in its hometown of Seattle. The e-commerce giant is continuing its foray into the physical with its second book store, announcing that it’s preparing to open up shop as a book peddle in San Diego this summer. [More]
Amazon Debuts New, Smaller Alexa-Enabled Devices: Echo Dot, Amazon Tap
By 3.3.16
Alexa is getting a few friends, two, to be exact. Amazon today launched the Amazon Tap and Echo Dot, smart speakers that incorporate personal assistant and know-it-all Alexa technology in smaller version of the company’s traditional Echo speaker. [More]
Amazon And Brita Announce Smart Pitcher That Orders Its Own Filters
By 2.29.16
Savvy observers probably knew when Amazon created its Dash system of buttons that let consumers re-order single items that they use often that the buttons themselves were never the point. The real point of Amazon Dash was to create smart home goods that replenish themselves, like printers that order their own ink and dishwashers that prompt you to order more soap after a certain number of wash cycles. Now that technology will be applied to… water filters. [More]
Amazon Makes New Streaming Show Available Without Prime, With Ads
By 2.26.16
Amazon’s streaming video programming is just another way for the company to entice customers to sign up for Prime memberships, right? Who can resist free 2-day shipping and Alpha House? Yet the company’s new reality show, a fashion design competition called The Fashion Fund, is available to stream for free with ads as long as you have an Amazon account. Oh, and by the way, you can buy the finalists’ collections on Amazon. [More]
You Can Use Amazon Payments Instead Of Your Credit Card On Southwest Flights
By 2.24.16
Southwest Airlines could have partnered up with a number of online payment services to let passengers log in to their accounts instead of pulling out their credit cards to pay for in-air WiFi and entertainment, including on their own devices. [More]
Amazon Now Selling Clothing Under Its Own In-House Brands
By 2.23.16
In yet another effort to completely and totally dominate the shopping world, Amazon has apparently started a few private label clothing brands and has been quietly shilling apparel and accessories under those trademarked names with nary a press release to let anyone know. [More]
Hoverboards Vanish From Amazon… Again
By 2.23.16
The list of retailers removing hoverboards from their virtual store shelves after receiving a warning from federal safety regulators grew again today, with Amazon stopping the sale of the self-balancing scooters for the second time. [More]
Amazon Raising Free Shipping Minimum For Non-Prime Shoppers From $35 To $49
By 2.22.16
In what would appear to be an effort to nudge more people toward paying $99 a year for the free shipping included in a Prime membership, Amazon is raising the free shipping minimum for non-Prime members from $35 to $49. [More]
Yes, You Can Combine Amazon Subscribe & Save With Free 2-Day Prime Shipping
By 2.15.16
Amazon’s Subscribe & Save feature is useful when there’s something that you want to buy online and know that you’ll need regular shipments of, like electric toothbrush heads or bags of freeze-dried marshmallows. There’s a catch, though: if you have Amazon Prime and want free two-day shipping on those mailing labels or novelty emery boards, selecting the Subscribe & Save option from the item page doesn’t get you two-day shipping by default. [More]
User Agreement For Amazon Game Engine Includes Zombie Apocalypse Clause
By 2.11.16
No one wants to — and virtually no one does — read the lengthy, legalese-filled user agreements. But for those who do choose to plow through the mouseprint, Amazon has left an amusing zombie-flavored treat in one of its contracts. [More]
Report: Amazon Wants To Help International Factories Sell Directly To You
By 2.9.16
A few years ago, Amazon made a prediction that came true: shoppers were about to use Amazon more for commerce across oceans and borders, ordering easily from all over the world. Yet experts at Amazon must have been wondering how they could help international merchants along, and make more money while they were at it. One possible solution: becoming a freight and warehouse operation for manufacturers abroad. [More]
Is Amazon Doing Anything To Fight Latest Wave Of Fake, Paid-For Reviews?
By 2.8.16
Since Amazon began allowing customers to post reviews on product pages, various waves of bogus reviewers have attempted to game the system by posting fictitious or dishonest write-ups. While Amazon has recently taken legal action against people paid to write fake reviews for products, and the site has a ban on most forms of “paid” reviews, there’s a new crop of compensated reviewers who are receiving free or discounted products in exchange for then writing “honest” reviews. But some of these users are writing dozens of reviews a day, sometimes for products they couldn’t possibly have tried. [More]
Mall CEO’s Comment About Amazon Stores Not Meant To Represent Amazon’s Actual Plans
By 2.3.16
Yesterday, everyone from book lovers to Barnes & Noble shareholders reacted to a tiny piece of news about Amazon during another company’s routine earnings call. The CEO of mall operator General Growth Properties told listeners that one factor affecting the future of mall traffic would be the 300 to 400 stores that Amazon plans to open in malls nationwide. “The what now?” everyone else on the call said. Now the company has walked back that comment. Sort of. [More]
