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Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Why Don't People Use Voice to Buy?

 Good points made here about the buying use via smart speakers.   Privacy concerns and lack of screens hurt.    But it's also a matter of the speakers being unable to carry on a smart, contextual conversation about products.    The 'assistance' aspect of speakers is still not well delivered, making it hard to close the sale.

Why isn’t voice commerce taking off?  in Retailwire by Tom Ryan  with further expert opinion at the link.

eMarketer last week lowered its outlook for smart speaker buyers (consumers making a purchase via a smart speaker) and smart speaker users (consumers using smart speakers for any purpose).

In a statement, eMarketer said it believes smart speaker usage still faces hurdles over payment security and privacy. 

Hub Entertainment Research’s recently-released “The Case for Voice Control” study, based on a survey of 2,512 U.S. consumers, likewise found 59 percent of those who regularly use a smart speaker have concerns about privacy. Those concerns include the threats of unwanted listening (91 percent) and data being unknowingly collected (90 percent).

The heightened privacy concerns follow numerous stories of digital assistants eavesdropping in homes. European Union privacy watchdogs indicated last month that they’re working on ways to police the reach of digital assistants into private conversations.

eMarketer also points to the absence of screens on most smart speakers as an inhibitor. Although manufacturers are releasing smart speakers with screens, many users haven’t felt the need to upgrade.

“There’s a good deal of friction in the voice-based buying process because people can’t see what they’ll actually be purchasing unless they have a screen on their smart speaker,” said eMarketer principal analyst Victoria Petrock. “So, most of the purchases made today are reorders and things that don’t need to be inspected.”  ... " 

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