Amazon’s in-app TikTok-like shopping feed is now available to all customers in the United States, according to the company’s website. The feature rolled out to select U.S. customers in December after Amazon had been spotted experimenting with a TikTok-like shopping feed last summer.
The new short-form video and photo feed allows consumers to explore products and ideas and shop from content created by influencers, brands and other customers.
To get started with Inspire, you have to open the Amazon Shopping app, sign in to your account and then tap the Inspire “light bulb” icon on the bottom navigation bar. You will then be prompted to choose from over 20 interests, including categories like makeup, skin care, pets, gaming, plants, hiking, interior design, travel, running and more to personalize your Inspire feed.
You can double-tap anywhere on the screen to “like” the content you see. As for the scrolling experience, it’s like using TikTok’s vertical video feed, where you swipe up from the bottom to see the next video. Engagement buttons are on the right side of the screen, just like they are on TikTok.
If you see something you like, you can scroll horizontally through the small buttons that display the products in the video at the bottom of your screen. When you click on a product, it will appear in an overlay window on top of the video. You can select the “See all details” button to be taken to the item’s product page where you can make a purchase or add the item to a list.
Creators enrolled in the Amazon Influencer Program can post content to Inspire. When customers shop from a creator’s content, the creator is eligible for commission. Customers can’t post to Inspire, but can submit a product review, which may appear in Inspire. If a customer’s product review does appear in the Inspire feed, they won’t earn commission. In addition, brands can post to Inspire, including vendors and sellers enrolled in Brand Registry with an active Brand Store.
“We invent every day to make shopping easy and fun,” said Amazon Shopping director Oliver Messenger in an emailed statement. “Inspire is our new shopping experience that connects Amazon customers with shoppable content created by other customers, the latest influencers, and a wide range of brands. In just a few taps, customers can discover new products or get inspiration on what to buy, all tailored to their interests, and then shop for those items on Amazon.”
The U.S.-wide launch of Inspire comes as Amazon has had a long history of incorporating popular formats from social media as a means of engaging shoppers and inspiring purchases. For instance, the e-commerce giant launched a Pinterest-like feature called Interesting Finds back in 2016. A few years later, Amazon launched an Instagram clone called Amazon Spark but ended up shelving the program in 2019 after only a couple of years.
Unlike social media platforms like TikTok, Amazon’s take on popular formats is to push products. People browse social media platforms for more than just looking for ideas about purchases, as they want to learn new things and be entertained. Although Amazon is incorporating short-form video, it’s unclear if it will be able to deliver a product that’s both entertaining and worthwhile when shopping.
Amazon Inspire is currently available to all customers in the U.S. via the Amazon mobile app on iOS and Android. Inspire is not accessible via desktop.
Source @TechCrunch
