Buy from Amazon using SMS

Now you can do shopping on the move, thanks to a new service launched by Amazon.com called "TextBuyIt". You no longer need to sit in front of your computer or walk into a store to do shopping. You can be just about anywhere, all you need is a cell phone.

All you need to do is simply text message the keyword of the product, UPC or ISBN to 262966 ("AMAZON") and they’ll text back with matching products, two at a time. Then you simply reply with the item number to buy the item or reply with "m" to get next two results. Similarly, to get details on an item, I need to text "xd" (where x is the item number).

Say for instance, I want to buy an iPod Nano. I’ll text message "ipod nano" to 262966. I’ll receive the list of matching products (say, 1)iPod Nano 4GB or 2)iPod Nano 8GB). To buy iPod Nano 8GB, I need to reply back "2".

Once your account gets associated with Amazon account, you need to provide the last four digits of your credit card to confirm the order. Pressing "*" in this stage will cancel the order and you’ll get the cancellation message.

I don’t think a lot of people will actually use text messaging for shopping. Personally, if I had a similar service here in India, I wouldn’t use it. Nonetheless, it would definitely be a great way to do comparison shopping, while you’re out for something.

Via: AP