Smart speakers in the home like Google Home and Amazon Echo are set to drive the next wave of e-commerce, according to new research.
A nationally-representative survey of 2,000 British adults commissioned by Artefact UK, an AI and data-driven agency, reveals six out of ten smart speaker owners (60%) have used them to make a purchase in the past year. In fact, nearly a quarter (22%) said they have done so within the past week.
Sarah De Martin, managing director at Artefact UK, says: “Voice offers a simple and spontaneous path to purchase that reflects how people behave naturally. 40% of our sample already owns one or more of these devices so the channel is nearing critical mass. Both Google and Amazon are offering aggressive discounts on their smart speakers and ownership grew by 79% last year alone.
“As an e-commerce business, it’s clear why Amazon wants to get Alexa into as many homes as possible. During its recent Prime Day event it even experimented by allowing Prime subscribers to access to some of its best offers through Alexa.”
The research found that nearly a third (31%) of smart speaker owners have already interacted with brands via their device. When respondents were asked to identify what they think smart speakers can do, around half (47%) suggested using them for shopping or buying takeaways, 39% said they were ideal for playing games or quizzes and 28% suggested that you could use them for booking travel.
The theory is for the most part backed up by how smart speaker owners are currently engaging with brands through their devices. The companies that people have interacted with are dominated by technology brands (especially Amazon), supermarkets, such as Sainsbury’s and takeaway delivery services including Domino’s.
However, nearly half (45%) of smart speaker owners share a nagging doubt that they aren’t getting the most out of their device. The most common use scenarios are to listen to music, books or podcasts (57%) and almost half (47%) use voice to for basic search, such as weather forecasts or recipes. More than a third (38%) say they use their smart speaker as an alarm clock.
Sarah De Martin concludes: “There seems to be a significant disconnect in how people are using their smart speakers, as compared to what they ‘think’ they should be able to do with them. As the number of households owning smart speakers grows there is a significant opportunity for brands that can rectify this. This lies in both optimising search for voice and through branded skills that play to what people actually want from their devices.
“The NHS made headlines recently when it announced its Alexa skill, which illustrates this point. It also shows that it’s not just the likes of Apple, Amazon and Google that can reach a mass audience through voice. The race is on for a brand to redefine what voice technology can and should be. The age of voice has arrived, so don’t get caught with nothing to say.”
