Amazon just released its much anticipated holiday toy list. Like in years past, the e-commerce giant releases a list of the 1,000 hottest toys for the season, which features brands like Disney, Star Wars and more. But this year there’s a twist—shoppers will now be able to hunt down items from the list using the company’s voice assistant, Alexa.
What that means is if you own an Alexa enabled device, you’ll be able to just order your gifts by telling your device what to order through a voice command. This will be a first for Amazon this holiday season and if used, could put voice-enabled shopping in the spotlight where a number of players are competing with voice assistants, such as Google and Apple.
Get Data Sheet, Coins2Day’s technology newsletter.
Amazon originally launched the ability to order from tens of millions of items from Amazon’s e-commerce marketplace in July, ahead of its big Summer shopping day, Prime Day. Using the company’s home automation devices Echo and Echo Dot, media streaming device Fire TV, or connected speaker Tap, Amazon shoppers could simply ask for the products they were looking to buy, and the transaction would begin. The one caveat is that the item must be a Prime product, meaning it is fulfilled by Amazon and can be shipped to customer’s doorsteps within two days or less.
In order to order toys using Alexa, shoppers can simply tell their device, for instance, “Alexa, order Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper.” The voice-enabled assistant will suggest the lowest-priced toy that fits that description from more than 500,000 Prime toys listed for sale on Amazon’s site. Customers can then confirm the item before continuing the transaction, and Alexa will take care of charging their credit card, and shipping the product to their home.
You Can Make Your Amazon Alexa Smarter
Amazon said the company is already getting orders via Alexa for popular toys, such as the Star Wars Sergeant Jyn Erso figurine for the holiday season.
Also new this year to the holiday toy list are curated videos that highlight certain types of toys on the list such as technology toys, STEM picks, and more.
Echo and the company’s other Alexa-enabled devices saw record sales in July’s Prime Day, but the big question will be whether customers actually use the convenience of Alexa to order items from their shopping lists this season. Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about sharing numbers and sales for its services and devices so it’s unclear if we’ll find out how popular Alexa will be for shopping. Stay tuned.