Amazon Wish Lists get the hashtag treatment

Extending its collaboration with Twitter, Amazon.com last week announced a new feature that lets shoppers quickly add items to an Amazon wish list by replying to a tweet with the hashtag #AmazonWishList.

Artists, experts, brands or friends might use the #AmazonWishList hashtag in tweets that include an Amazon.com product link. Customers need to connect their Twitter and Amazon.com accounts to make it work. They can then type #AmazonWishList to automatically add items to their Amazon Wish List without leaving Twitter.

"Twitter offers Amazon customers a great environment for inspiration and discovery," said John Yurcisin, director of social at Amazon, in a statement. "#AmazonWishList makes it easy for people to quickly add holiday gifts, décor or entertaining items tweeted by interesting people, friends, or brands on Twitter to their Amazon Wish List, allowing customers to simply save items to their Wish List and keep on Tweeting."

The deal expands upon Amazon’s #AmazonCart deal on Twitter that allows Twitter users to tweet an Amazon product link to add items to their Amazon shopping cart. It also builds on the popularity of Amazon’s Wish List with both online and mobile Amazon users. Last year, one in three Amazon customers worldwide added items to their wish lists. Last holiday, Amazon customers added seven books and five toys every second to Amazon Wish Lists.

For Twitter, the initiative expands on its exploration of e-commerce. In July,
Twitter acquired CardSpring, a payments infrastructure startup that lets merchants create credit card-linked offers or tweeted promotions. Earlier in September, Twitter began testing out "Buy" buttons in tweets with a small handful of retailers, following Facebook’s "Buy" button addition in July.

Since #AmazonWishList only works with public Twitter accounts, anyone can see what items shoppers are interested in. Some tech bloggers say the low-pressure alternative could appeal to Twitter users.

#AmazonWishList

"#AmazonWishList indicates your interest in an item without committing to it," wrote Caitlin McGarry for PCWorld. "Twitter and Amazon see what strikes your fancy and can show you more stuff like it in Promoted Tweets. Eventually you’ll click ‘buy,’ but it won’t feel forced."

Wrote Sarah Perez for TechCrunch, "Indicating an interest in a product, evangelizing or opining on it fits in better with the way people use Twitter today. It’s easy to imagine users retweeting deals and product news from favorite merchants and adding the #AmazonWishList tag as a sort of ‘note to self.’"

BrainTrust

Discussion Questions

Does #AmazonWishList offer an example of how Twitter commerce could work? What do you think of the overall potential of using social media to build wish lists?

Poll

18 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Max Goldberg
Max Goldberg
9 years ago

Brilliant move by Twitter and Amazon. Twitter has been under fire for not monetizing its millions of users and Amazon opens another channel to drive interest and purchase. Both companies will share a new source of actionable data. Few merchants could pull this off, but with Amazon’s endless aisles of merchandise, they were in the best position to partner with Twitter.

Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
9 years ago

People are not necessarily shopping when on Twitter so they may not be thinking about making a purchase. However, putting something on a wish list would be an easy decision for anything of interest. This sounds like a good idea to me for consumers to remember an item, for Twitter to become more relevant and for Amazon to be the place of purchase for the item.

Ryan Mathews
Ryan Mathews
9 years ago

Well, we’ll see how well the Amazon/Twitter deal works.

In general social media obviously offers high potential for sales and marketing but—as always—the devil is in the execution.

Bill Davis
Bill Davis
9 years ago

Yes and this is a win-win for both. People rely on their friends and network for recommendations, so I think there’s an upside here.

Ed Rosenbaum
Ed Rosenbaum
9 years ago

This is another example of Amazon pushing others to work harder to either catch up to them or, at least, not fall farther behind.

I see this as a winner for them. They are exploring another social media outlet to further expand their business. Smart!

Keith Anderson
Keith Anderson
9 years ago

This is one of dozens of developing integrations of content and commerce. I see massive long-term potential for many of these applications, but most (including the Amazon/Twitter hashtag integrations) are too esoteric to move the needle in the near term.

Second-screen apps (that display merchandise or other complementary content during movies or television), augmented reality apps like Amazon’s Flow (and hardware like Dash), recipe-to-cart apps like Foodity and Whisk, shoppable Pinterest boards, the list goes on.

What is needed is a visual vocabulary that will drive awareness and understanding of these applications into the mainstream. Given the challenges “impulse” categories face online, there is massive upside to these working out, but we’re not there yet.

Joel Rubinson
Joel Rubinson
9 years ago

This is a brilliant move. It creates a direct link between social media and shopping that had been lacking. Furthermore, it does it in a way that is uniquely Twitter. I don’t think Facebook can easily respond in kind to this.

Cathy Hotka
Cathy Hotka
9 years ago

Smart move by both companies! Although I’m not sure I’ll be seeing many product links in Twitter feeds.

The Twitter hashtag is transforming the way people talk about the world around them, and we’re just at the beginning. The ALS ice bucket challenge is the best example so far of how a brand can break through; can’t wait to see the next one.

Tony Orlando
Tony Orlando
9 years ago

Another winner to communicate with people who love using the high-tech way to shop. It certainly will help keep sales in Amazon’s pockets.

Ralph Jacobson
Ralph Jacobson
9 years ago

There is definitely potential to leverage social channels to drive awareness of virtually everything, including wish lists. With the pull of Amazon and the reach of Twitter, I think brands could do well to jump on this train before it’s left the station.

Bill Bittner
Bill Bittner
9 years ago

I do not have contact with many millennials, but my sample size of one gave me an interesting experience. We were talking about the NSA and the government tracking of email. I mentioned the fact that private companies have been scanning emails forever. The teenager’s reaction was, “They can’t do that, it would be invasion of privacy.” This came from a second year dean’s list business major. I didn’t argue, but it really made me wonder if the millennial generation really understands the scope of today’s surveillance.

When you read the description of the hash tag link, it really seems like a great opportunity for both businesses, but I am not sure what it means for individuals. The user is required to link their Twitter and Amazon accounts, which gives both companies the ability to follow users’ activity across platforms. Facebook, just today, announced a goal to use their platform to provide across-site advertising. This is the Holy Grail for online advertising, to be able to follow users across their favorite internet sites.

Before my millennial conversation, I would have wondered how many people would link their accounts. Now I really think the challenge will be on Facebook as different social media sites forge relationships that allow them to directly understand how users user their sites. Once the accounts are linked, even if you never add an item to your wish list, you will be under surveillance.

Kai Clarke
Kai Clarke
9 years ago

This is a good concept, but its public sharing approach has issues with personal security and confidentiality. This could end up becoming a serious negative if there is not a way to make these wish lists private.

Naomi K. Shapiro
Naomi K. Shapiro
9 years ago

If all ya have to do is push a button … why not?

Brian Numainville
Brian Numainville
9 years ago

Clever move and one that could be a sales builder if well executed. I keep an Amazon wish list and many times buy from it. This will be another easy way to add items to it to review in more depth later and buy if it fits my needs!

Ed Stevens
Ed Stevens
9 years ago

It’s an interesting idea, and I applaud any experimentation with new ways to shop.

However, the big problem with social commerce is that talking about things we buy or want to buy is off-putting and socially awkward. Twitter is public, which means that anything I tweet is viewable by my friends, co-workers, customers and neighbors.

Most folks with some social intelligence recognize that those who talk publicly about what they buy or want to buy are boorish, inconsiderate or both.

There are niche communities of hard-core shoppers who may use this sort of thing. Maybe celebs or bloggers. But until society changes and unbridled materialism is actually cool, social commerce will likely continue to lay duds.

Shilpa Rao
Shilpa Rao
9 years ago

That’s a brilliant way to capitalize on each other’s strengths. As rightly mentioned in the article, the no-pressure feel to this makes it even more acceptable.

Thomas Muscarello
Thomas Muscarello
9 years ago

Nice move. We are increasingly linking accounts for various reasons anyway. Why not make shopping easier?

Word Of Mouth from friends is seen in many studies as far more valuable than ad placement so tweets should be valuable sales devices. Now, if I could just have a #OneClickBuy hashtag response to the Amazon product link it would save me the trouble of having to check my wish list later on. This could enable impulse purchases in a non-shopping setting.

Alexander Rink
Alexander Rink
9 years ago

I think it is a good move for both companies, but I don’t see it really moving the needle in the short term. When we really analyze how many people will use this, we need to consider how many are diehard Twitter users, how many of those will be aware of the service, how many of those will be comfortable exposing their wish lists for everyone to see, and so on.

I do think there is potential here, and it is definitely worth exploring for both parties. From an Amazon perspective, it seems like yet one more opportunity to demonstrate their customer focus, and one more opportunity to rub it in other retailers’ faces how much more technologically sophisticated and innovative they are.