Amazon expanded its Twitter e-commerce integration today, giving users the ability to add to Amazon wish lists using the hashtag #AmazonWishList in a reply to a tweet.
In May Amazon launched a variant of this feature that enabled customers to drop items they discovered on Twitter into their shopping carts — using #AmazonCart in replies.
Today’s move adds wish lists to the mix; Amazon noted in a release “just in time for the holiday shopping season.” The company said one in three Amazon customers worldwide used wish lists last year, accounting for 50 items added every second.
#AmazonWishList aims to make that process seamless for Twitter users.
Here’s how it works. A user who sees a tweet that includes an Amazon product, replies to that tweet with the hashtag. If the user has connected his Twitter account with Amazon (via http://amazon.com/social), he’ll receive an immediate Twitter reply and email saying the item has been added. Otherwise, he’ll receive a reply asking him to connect his account.
@MartinBeck Great! We added the item to your http://t.co/JCF8onLcKH Wish List. View your Wish List here: http://t.co/ffAK6qiGiA — MyAmazon (@MyAmazon) September 24, 2014
In my testing, the process only works with replies; you can’t drop an Amazon link and a hashtag into a fresh tweet and have it land in your wish list, or for that matter, your shopping cart by using #AmazonCart.
Which begs a couple questions: How many people are apt to use these features? Is adding the hashtag to a reply that much easier than tapping through to the Amazon link and adding it to your wish list by tapping a button on Amazon’s mobile site?
That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Twitter is still testing its native e-commerce solution, a Buy button that enables users to tap within tweets to make purchases. The test, announced this month, is being run with a limited number of partners and companies.
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