Simplifying checkout with Alexa Skill and Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay, which lets customers use their Amazon information to shop on third-party sites, advises online retailers to set up Alexa Skills for their store. This could make checkout easier for customers by allowing them to use voice commands to complete their order.

In September, we wrote that Amazon Pay had introduced Checkout v2, which would make checkout faster and more secure. Through an improved checkout design, the company believes Checkout v2 could raise conversion rates by 35%,

Retailers using Alexa

Amazon Pay can be integrated with Alexa, the voice-controlled assistant from Amazon. Some merchants are already using Alexa, such as Ocado. In 2017, the retailer launched an app built with Alexa Skill, which made it possible for customers to add products to their basket, or keep track of an order by asking “where’s my order?”

When customers say a command out loud, Alexa will trigger an action on the retailer’s website.

Retailers can use the Alexa Skills Kit to build a skill. With these skills, they can develop commands and appropriate responses. This means that when customers say these commands out loud, Alexa will trigger an action on the retailer’s website.

‘Easier to integrate’

Kris Zanuldin, Head of Connected Commerce at Amazon Pay said: “We’ve received a lot of questions around Amazon Pay, Alexa and voice commerce. We’ve recently made it easier to integrate voice into a merchant’s ecommerce offering with Alexa’s delivery notifications capability – further opening up an opportunity for merchants to leverage an Amazon channel. That means, Amazon Pay merchants can use Alexa to let their customers know when their order has been delivered, when they want, and in a natural, contextual, trusted way.”

‘We’ve made it easier to integrate voice into a merchant’s ecommerce.’

Retailers can also build skills to provide customers with proactive delivery notifications. “Using these skills means your online store will require less customer support, as you will receive fewer customer service inquiries for checking delivery status.” Delivery notifications are currently available for Magento 2 retailers and will soon be available to BigCommerce retailers.

Incorporating phrases across channels

In order to activate the skill, customers will need to know the Alexa skill phrases, such as: “Alexa, complete my <cart ID> from <merchant>.” Customers will need to be aware of these phrases and remember to use them. Educating customers by incorporating these phrases throughout the website or on social media, or by placing them in captions on Instagram, could help build awareness and use.

“A simple way to improve engagement and delight customers is to focus on making their habitual purchasing easier. For example, return users to your website can see an option to reorder their previously purchased regular-use items. You could add a banner style Alexa phrase next to the items, making users aware of an alternative method of reordering.”