The term ‘share’ takes a new dimension on Amazon, and a much awaited one, as all the Amazon users, will now get to try their hand at the improvised ‘share’ feature that enables them to create a collaborative Amazon wish list. Up until now, the giant eCommerce platforms, Amazon and eBay had put up the ‘share’ feature with the sole functionality of enabling the other person to simply view lists. An Amazon list did not allow adding, editing, removing items on the list, barring the users who subscribed to the Wedding registry on Amazon.
However, now, every individual’s Amazon wish list will pop up a new icon with a + Invite button beside it, with the one-liner: “Invite others to add or remove list items’. E-shopping takes gets more delightful for the Amazon users by clicking on the invite button, and pasting and sharing the URL with friends/family, they can really experience collaborative e-shopping. The invited friends have to just follow the link, following which Amazon will pop up in the browser with a message stating that the added friends can now easily add and/or remove items from their friend’s list.
The list will open up to modifications such as editing comments, adding products, changing quantities and so on. With Amazon’s ‘Invite’ feature, e-shopping at Amazon echoes the collective experience of family shopping or shopping with friends as in a physical visit to stores, minus the time expended in physical shopping.
Adding to this, a new conversation icon on the right will allow users to actually exchange messages and information about the items on the list wherein the original owner of the list has to tap three dots on the top right to allow friends to access the list with the Manage people feature. The Manage people feature is also an effective tab to retract people from accessing the list.
Importantly enough, sharing and inviting/collaborating do retain the thin line between them as simple sharing will allow others to view the list without any editing control. Only the ‘invite’ feature will actually let them foray into your shopping lists where they too can contribute actively.
As of now, Amazon’s ‘invite’ feature seems to be quite new, with its availability yet to be extended from the Amazon mobile and desktop sites to the native Android app yet. But, a full-throttle rollout is not a far cry, and until then, the users can enjoy their shopping on Amazon in the spirit of a friends/family-day-out at shopping.
