Amazon Inspire

Phil: Amazon has announced a new TikTok like shopping experience. It's called Inspire. I went on my app, it's not there. It's only for a limited number of people so far. So I wasn't able to see it. But basically what they're doing is, you know, they're gonna have videos and images, so you can then press a button and you could buy whatever that product is. 

Phil: This article's really interesting to me because of one of the things they say at the end of it, most of Amazon's takes on social media tend to be fairly bland as the content only exists to push products. People browse social sites for more than just ideas about things to buy. They want to engage with creators, learn new things, laugh and be entertained. So, you know, we've seen Amazon come up with a whole bunch of things with live videos and so on, but I think this article really points out very clearly what Amazon's problem is, that they're just focused on selling things versus really trying to be a social media channel. 

Sally: Yes. And I think that this is a really cool step in the right direction as far as trends are going with people getting engaging in social media. You know, it does sound a lot like scrolling through TikTok, like scrolling through Instagram Reels and Stories. This is gonna be videos that customers can actually contribute. So it's not just the brands, it's customers, it's influencers. So there is more of a connecting with real people using these products and talking about them. Hopefully that's what they're planning on. 

Phil: Do you think Amazon can pull it off? 

Sally: I think they definitely have the opportunity. You know, a lot of people wanna shop on Amazon because we can get anything there and we can get it quickly. Seeing those stories about those products will make it even more intriguing. 

Phil: Yeah.