Albertsons Partners with Google

Interesting out of market play,  but I do remember being shown a Google physical store mapped space that digitized the experience of shopping lists.  See my tags below on shopping lists.  Where will this take it?  To the 'worlds most predictive grocery engine"?  Expected more from Amazon and Dash on this.   Investigating, send me more. 

Threatened by Amazon, Albertsons Partners With Google to Digitalize the Grocery Shopping Experience

In Forbes, Johan Moreno March 31, 2021

A multi-year partnership between Google and Albertsons Companies, the No. 2 grocer in the U.S. by store count, aims to digitalize the grocery shopping experience at a time when competitor Amazon is expanding its brick-and-mortar grocery footprint via Amazon Fresh. The partnership would integrate Google's Cloud AI technologies into Albertsons' operations to create what Google called "the world's most predictive grocery engine." The move could help Google as it works to make its cloud business profitable and help Albertsons take on Amazon Fresh. Albertsons has launched Google's Business Messages in a limited capacity to provide shoppers with Covid-19 vaccine information, and plans to release the shoppable maps and predictive grocery-list-building capability soon.   ... '

New Dash Replenishment Shelf

 Alas the Amazon DASH replenishment Button, which we tested for a few years in stores and at homes  is gone. We were much into 'ease-of' and automatic replenishment tech in innovation centers and Smart home designs.   Well now DASH is back, but aimed at the small office with an automated weight driven  shelf.   Will this work, and for who? Below a sort description and discussion.   It turns out this shelf is not a new Dash idea, we were offered to test it back then,  but elected the consumer order button design.   Can we help you test?

Will Amazon’s Dash Smart Shelf drive auto-replenishment from SMBs and consumers?  by Tom Ryan in Retailwire

Amazon.com, after retiring the Dash Button last year, has introduced a replacement, Dash Smart Shelf, that promises to shake up the office supplies space and bring auto-replenishment to households.

Costing $19.99 each, Dash Smart Shelf is a weight-sensing, Wi-Fi-enabled auto-replenishment scale. When placed on a flat surface, such as a warehouse rack, it can track inventory for commonly used products. When it senses supplies are running low, a replenishment order or notification is automatically sent.

The system offers three scale sizes; each scale can only be paired with one product at a time. Amazon says that “thousands of popular products” including most household and workplace staples can be replenished under the program.   .... '

Amazon Debuts Dash Smart Shelf

If pushing the Dash Button was too hard for you, here is the next reordering play from Amazon, the smart shelf that automatically reorders when a shelf has less than a given weight of product.   Unless you are very tidy about where things are put, this is more of an office thing.   And there too,  I have often see many less organized offices.  They have thought ahead  about temporary changes in stock. Perhaps a narrower demand profile than expected.   We did test weight triggered solutions on store shelves to signal out-of-stocks in Grocery.  This further adds another Amazon Alexa presence to the office.  In the link below, pictures of its suggested uses.

Amazon debuts the Dash Smart Shelf to gain a bigger presence in the office   By Maria Deutcher in SiliconAngle

After getting its Echo smart speakers into tens of millions of homes, Amazon.com Inc. is now hoping to establish a bigger presence in the workplace. 

The company on Thursday pulled back the curtains on the Dash Smart Shelf, an internet-connected scale for businesses that automatically reorders office supplies from Amazon when they’re about to run out. Users can place common items like printer paper, pens and notepads atop the device. When the Dash Smart Shelf senses that the weight drops below a certain level, it will purchase a fresh batch of whatever office suppliers it’s holding.

There’s an alternate setting that companies can select to have the scale notify the office manager instead of placing orders on its own. To prevent accidental purchases, Amazon has designed the onboard software to detect if supplies are temporarily removed by a worker.

The Dash Smart Shelf comes in three sizes ranging in size from 7 inches by 7 seven inches to 18 inches by 13 inches. All the versions are one-inch tall and can be powered either via a wall plug or four AAA batteries.  .... "

Amazon Alexa Strategy for Voice Retail?

From a retail perspective.   I was struck by the cancellation of the Amazon Dash replenishment idea,  so push button buying did not work, and voice buying also seems to be weak.  Automotive coverage.  An attempt for controlling all the digital channels. 

What is Amazon’s ultimate Alexa strategy?   by Tom Ryan in Retailwire

At its hardware event in Seattle last week, Amazon.com introduced a whopping 15 new products linked to its Alexa platform with the apparent goal of being a voice-command away from consumers at any time. Not everybody, however, is seeing the commerce connection. 

Much speculation ensued on why Amazon launched so many items, including wireless earbuds, smart glasses, a smart ring and a multifunction oven that can double as a microwave and air fryer. Also being increasingly debated is whether Amazon needs to make money directly on Alexa-linked hardware devices and whether the ultimate benefits may extend beyond voice commerce.

In a blog entry following the event, Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm that publishes research on consumer technology, writes that Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem is “a bit of a head-scratcher” because voice shopping hasn’t taken off.   ....  "

Hacking the Dash Button

Tom Warren in The Verge writes about the fast approaching demise of the Amazon Dash Button.  With some interesting use experience comments.  Also points to some ways that their lifeless shells can be hacked to perform other tasks with the Raspberry Pi.  I pass it along here so that at least a few of them may have an after life purpose.

I will miss Amazon’s Dash buttons
Dashed dreams of toilet euphoria
By Tom Warren  @tomwarren  ...

Amazon to Soon Shut off All Dash Buttons

Amazon will shut down all its one-push dash ordering buttons by the end of August, lliked the idea, thought it was novel and interesting.   Used it for several years, for several products, we had discussed similar concepts.   A bit surprised.  It seemed that Amazon had too soon cut off the marketing of the idea.  Or perhaps just too mechanical?   So did they build loyalty on CPG products at all?

Amazon is going to kill your Dash button in CNet

The online retail giant says all Dash buttons will stop working at the end of the month.   By Ben Fox Rubin

If you're dying to test out the features of Amazon's Dash button, it's now or never. Amazon said Thursday it will turn off the capabilities of all its Dash buttons worldwide on Aug. 31.

This decision follows Amazon's move in February to stop selling new buttons. At the time, the company let folks with existing Dash buttons continue to order stuff with them, but an Amazon spokeswoman said usage "has significantly slowed" since then, resulting in the company pulling the plug completely on the program.

The Dash button, the ultimate single-use device, lets you buy an item on Amazon with one click. There was a Dash button for Tide detergent and one for Gillette razor blades and another for Sheeba cat food. Dozens were created, as brands quickly saw the buttons' value as a way of building customer loyalty and creating tiny ads in people's homes. ... " 

A Look at Dash Buttons, Gone but not Forgotten

Used them from the beginning, from beta on to the regular use of a dozen of them on the frig.   We discussed the concept years before.    Still has a place I believe, they are a part of a consumer IOT that connects people directly to fulfillment.   Only slightly easier than using voice to start an order, but we found that aspect of easier can be a big thing.

Amazon's Dash Buttons Aren't Dead - They will Haunt us forever  in Wired

This story is part of a collection of pieces on how we spend money today.

AMAZON’S DASH BUTTONS were either the pinnacle of gimmickry—a bunch of plastic purchase-dongles that served no use except to stuff your cabinets with more home goods—or a prime example of streamlined, purpose-driven design. Like a lot of products: It depends on who you ask.

But what if Amazon Dash Buttons, which were discontinued as of February 28, were both? What if every time we pushed one of these silly buttons, we—the consumers—were helping Amazon build a bridge to a future of interface-free shopping? In this future, physical shopping apparatus will be quaint. No sooner will our eyes lock on an empty bottle of dish soap, or a pair of sneakers in a social media app, than the item will appear in a virtual shopping cart. If that doesn’t work, we can shout at Alexa to order it for us. That’s what Amazon seems to be angling for, anyway. Where they’re going, they don’t need buttons.

Amazon Dash Buttons launched in the spring of 2015. The March 31 birthday didn’t help things: People on the internet wondered if they were part of an April Fool’s Day joke. They were mostly plastic, mostly white, not much larger than a key fob. Each Dash Button included a Wi-Fi radio, an LED light, and, of course, a button. And each was sheathed in a specific #brand, tiny advertisements for Hefty or Brita or Gillette or Olay plastered all over your home. Provided you were an Amazon Prime subscriber, all you had to do was push the button. In a couple of days, the preset product would arrive at your door.    ... " 

A Look at Digital Buttons: Amazon Dash

Below is the first piece in TheVerge on 'Buttons', which I loosely define as simple as possible interfaces to otherwise complex processes.    Probably the best known is the Amazon Dash. I remember discussing it with folks from Amazon at our innovation center not long after they started selling things other than books online.   Not claiming we got the idea first,  but we certainly had discussed having a re-order button for detergent on a washing machine long before.  After that we got a beta version, and I have been using it ever since in my Smart Home.  Later we talked about having a 'button' on a process model to measure when things were done.  Or to use to vote or bid on something.  Using one of Amazon's proto-buttons. Which you can probably get cheap now.  But that never happened.  Still much like the button as a kind of IOT simple-as-possible interface.  Let me know if you want to talk that.  Nice piece below, and more upcoming I will comment on.

The Amazon Dash button was a physical interface to digital shopping
Button of the Month: Amazon Dash button    By Chaim Gartenberg   @cgartenberg

In today’s digital age, it can sometimes feel like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives devices. Button of the Month is a column that looks at some of these buttons and switches on devices both old and new to appreciate how we interact with our devices on a physical, tactile level.

Shopping on Amazon is a vastly digital experience. Until the last few years, there hasn’t been a physical way to go and buy things from Amazon. For the overwhelming majority of Amazon purchases, there’s still no checkout lane, no aisles to browse, no physical interactions at all — famously, the company’s “One Click” software removes nearly all barriers between wanting something and buying it.

Amazon’s now-defunct Dash buttons — small, Wi-Fi connected pods with a single button on them that would reorder a specific product — were meant to change that when they were introduced in 2015. They offered a physical manifestation of that traditional Amazon experience: buy what you need with just one click. ....."

Amazon Stops Selling Dash Buttons

Was an early tester,  and still know many people that use them.  Note the indication below that they had been declared illegal, at least in parts of the EU for not directly providing prices.  They had even been used as simple consumer-ready IOT devices for other needs.

Amazon stops selling Dash buttons in the BBC

Amazon says it has stopped selling its Dash buttons because shoppers are using other methods to buy products.  The plastic Dash buttons were designed to be stuck around the home and pressed to reorder specific products on Amazon.

When the buttons were launched in 2015, Amazon had to reassure the BBC's Dave Lee they were not an April Fool's joke.

Amazon said product subscriptions and automatic reordering had since grown in popularity making the buttons unnecessary. ... 

 ... But in January, a court in Germany ruled that the buttons were illegal because they did not let customers see the price of products when they ordered.... ".

Homekit Adds a Button

Been pointing out that buttons are being added to smart home applications.   With some similarities to the Dash Button that I have had in my smart home since its beginning.  Now Apple Homekit has this kind of ability as well.   A kind of IOT connection to other things within the home.  Looking at what can be programmed into it.

Eve Button review: This programmable button puts you touch with your HomeKit tech ... This smart button brings tactile control to HomeKit-enabled devices.

By Michael Ansaldo in TechConnect ... 

AT&T Builds a Dash-Like Button

Always thought there was a place for simple buttons to link to IOT networks, to make requests of many kinds, beyond just ordering something.   Why doesn't IFTTT have something like this?  This seems to be that,    The way I read it,  although provided through AWS,  it is not an Amazon Echo infrastructure thing.  Will be interesting if that  changes.

AT&T's Dash-like smart button doesn't need WiFi
It's also not pre-programmed like Amazon's one-click device.
By Mariella Moon, @mariella_moon in Engadget

AT&T has launched a new product called LTE-M button, which allows users to place an order online in one click. Yes, it sounds just like Amazon Dash -- in fact, it's powered by Amazon Web Services -- but since it's connected to AT&T's LTE-M network, it doesn't need a WiFi connection to work. AT&T's button was also designed more for businesses than homes and individuals. It's not pre-programmed like Amazon's Dash buttons are, and companies can program it to accomplish tasks that fit their needs. .... "

More details from AT&T

Maintaining Shopping Lists in Amazon Dash

I got a note from Amazon yesterday, indicating that one of my Amazon Dash items had been discontinued.  And offered me a long list of substitutions.  Have now been a 'subscriber' to Dash items almost from their beginning.  The idea works well.   In fact, recall talking the idea at our innovation center before they were announced.  Which reminds me of the need to maintain lists and preferences.   Also permits the constructor of the list some power in inserting their own choices.   Not clear if there are any statements in the EULA to that effect, but will investigate.

Virtual Dash Buttons

Recently sent to me, an announcement that Amazon dash buttons were going 'virtual', and have been for some time.  And I was sent virtual buttons for a number of things that I had ordered in the past.  Not quite the same thing as physical buttons that make their presence on the frig, but if you reside on the Web, as many workers do, its quick and easy. 

And how is this really changing my retail behavior, when they are not physical buttons?  May depend on how organized I am online.   Would like to have  a reminder too of the relative deal I am getting.  Is it just convenience?

Dear Amazon Customer,

You can now use Dash Buttons online to instantly reorder your favorite products, just like you do with the Dash Button devices in your home. Our new virtual Dash Buttons are available for tens of millions of products that ship with Prime, and they’re free, so you can add as many as you want. We’ve automatically added buttons for products you’ve purchased in the past. Check them out today.  ....   further described here.

Expanding the Dash Button

During our early work on an 'ordering button' we imagined them integrated into consumer products, right next to the point of need.  Most of my own Dash Buttons are on the frig after early concept and operations testing.   These can also detect patterns in ordering that can drive other replenishment behaviors. I would also like easier price comparison.  A Moment of truth that combines use and selection?

Amazon ramps up Dash Button integration for super-quick ordering     By Trevor Mogg in Digitaltrend 

" ... Amazon already has a number of manufacturers working the technology directly into their products, and this week it announced that more makers are getting on board.

New devices offering automatic ordering via Dash include printers from HP and Epson so you never run out of ink, a range of home appliances from Kenmore, smart air filters from 3M that automatically reorder replacement filters, coffee machines from illy that track capsule usage, and Wi-Fi “pet camera” maker Petcube that’ll automatically reorder animal treats.

Amazon this month also announced the Virtual Dash Button Service (VDBS) that allows third parties to offer virtual Dash Buttons on their screened devices — think smart washers and refrigerators.

“Virtual Dash Buttons are shortcuts that allow Prime members to quickly find and reorder their favorite products from a selection of millions of eligible products,” Amazon explains. “Virtual Dash Buttons launched on Amazon’s mobile application and website in January 2017, expanded to Echo Show in October, and now can be available on third party devices via VDBS.”

The system enables you to quickly bring up multiple items on the display — so for your washer it might be different brands of detergent and fabric conditioner — and order in a couple of taps. While the ordering is manual rather than the automatic system employed by many Dash devices, this method allows you to select from multiple products associated with a particular machine. .... " 

Dash Buttons Open to Developers

Besides just buying things, how else might they be used?

Amazon opens up virtual Dash Buttons to third-party developers   By Swapna Krishna, @skrishna in Engadget

It also added new companies to its Dash Replenishment program

If you're a regular Amazon shopper, you're probably aware of the virtual Dash buttons on the site's homepage. The site will auto-generate buttons that allow you to re-buy your most recently purchased items with one click. You can also create your own Dash buttons. Today, Amazon announced the Virtual Dash Button Service (VDBS), a developer kit that will allow third parties to create Dash buttons and display them inside their own devices with screens.

Amazon also announced that new companies have joined Dash Replenishment. The program measures the supply and use of consumables; when you're running out, it will automatically reorder more of whatever it is you're using. HP is now developing printers that automatically reorder ink, while 3M is working on air filters that can order their own replacements. Kenmore's new line of appliances will automatically reorder supplies, such as air filters and laundry detergent, while illy's new coffee maker (that is now available for purchase) will reorder capsules. ... "

New Virtual Dash Buttons

Amazon continues to redesign how and where you can utilize their Dash Button idea for product order and reorder.   The idea came up years ago when we talked the importance of making re-order as easy and transparent as possible. At the time there was no easy support to implement them. Now they have exploded the possibilities with virtual implementations.  Have tested many options for CPG.  See below for update.

Dear Amazon Customer,

You can now use Dash Buttons online to instantly reorder your favorite products, just like you do with the Dash Button devices in your home. Our new virtual Dash Buttons are available for tens of millions of products that ship with Prime, and they’re free, so you can add as many as you want. We’ve automatically added buttons for products you’ve purchased in the past. Check them out today.

More here.

Wal-Mart IOT Patent for Replenishment

Noted this before,  worth taking another look.  Note the implication of inclusion within the product.  Via CBInsights: 

Walmart’s IoT Patent Application Takes Aim At Amazon Dash

" ... The system is reminiscent of Amazon Dash — the connected buttons offered by Amazon that let users quickly re-order products. Launched over two years ago, Amazon Dash buttons now cover over 300 products. However, as we’ll describe below, Walmart’s system would require even less effort than Amazon’s. While Dash buttons still require users to press a physical button separate from the product (easy though that may be), Walmart aims to integrate IoT into the products themselves for automatic re-ordering with no user input at all. ... " 

Related smart home reordering efforts by Procter & Gamble.

Procter Uses Simple Text for Razor Reorder

Addressing  the Razor blade club competition.  Procter's Gillette is using a simple text for order and replenishment.  How does this compare with approaches like Amazon Dash?  Other automated replenishment methods?

In Bizjournals:
Procter & Gamble Co. revealed today that it has launched Gillette on Demand, which will enable consumers to order razor blades with a one-word text message.

The Cincinnati-based company (NYSE: PG) said Gillette On Demand is the brand’s first direct-to-consumer service. Orders are shipped straight from Gillette facilities to men’s doorsteps in about two to three business days  .... " 

Wal-Mart Aims to Ease the Re-Order

Note that this is about a patent, so its speculative.  Not unexpected that Wal-Mart would also push this.  Even implies there is an automatic replenishment element.  Which we note Amazon is already trying to federalize.  In Reuters:

Wal-Mart files patent for Amazon Dash rival
" ... Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) has applied for a patent to compete with Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) wifi-connected, one-button ordering device, Amazon Dash, according to data provider CB Insights. ....

The patent, filed in October, would be the first of Wal-Mart's more than 800 patents and applications to focus on Internet of Things (IoT) and branches into shoppers' homes, CB Insights said. ... "

Virtual Dash Buttons for Replenishment

Now there are also   Virtual Dash Buttons, software shortcuts that work the same as physical buttons, can work on devices like tablets and phones.   Allow for quick replenishment decisions, wherever you may be.  Another example of making things easier to buy.  With a merchandising fee charged to the manufacturer?  Where dash buttons were available for only participating products, these can be requested for millions (all?) products.  Buttons are free.
More: 

Exclusively for Prime members, Dash Buttons are shortcuts to quickly find and reorder your favorite products on Amazon’s mobile app and website. Dash Buttons are available for tens of millions of products that ship with Prime. And Dash Buttons are free, so you can add as many as you want. ... 

Always Accessible
Find Dash Buttons on the Amazon home page, or at Your Dash Buttons, where you can sort, label, or delete your buttons. If you've purchased a product on Amazon that is typically reordered, we will automatically create a Dash Button for you. You can add new Dash Buttons from the product details page of any product available with Prime shipping ...  "