Amazon proves why they have retail stores RUNNING SCARED.

Amazon.com, the world's largest on-line retailer,  has devised a way to increase downloads of it's new Price Check App this Holiday season by offering an additional 5% discount to consumers who download the App to their mobile devices.

In my opinion, the people running Amazon are GENIUSES!  Imagine; You're at Wal-Mart (or Target, Sears, Best-Buy, Macy's WHEREVER) and, while you are in the store, you can scan the bar-code of any item you want and check to see if Amazon has a better price on that exact item!  Talk about on the spot, up to date info that you can really use!

GENIUS!!

December 10 is the day that Amazon has picked to give away the 5% discount and, unsurprisingly, they anticipate it to be one of the biggest days of the year for the new Price Check App.

The discount is an incentive for consumers to download the App, another genius move.  Amazon, for obvious reasons, wants you to have the App and is willing to take a small loss to do it.  This is what we in the biz call an 'ethical bribe'.  Why?  Because the more people that have the App on their phones the better for Amazon. For them, 5% is a very small loss that will lead to a very big gain; lots of people using the App to check prices and make purchases on Amazon.com.

“Price Check is a great way for customers to ensure they’re getting a good price on the items they’re buying,” said Sally Fouts, a spokeswoman for Amazon.com, Seattle.

Yeah, that's the understatement of the year.  It's a GREAT way to check and see if Amazon has a better price and, in doing so, buy from Amazon instead of the retailer where you are actually standing!

The Price Check app is available for iPhone and Android devices. In order to receive the 5% discount consumers will need the newest version of he App on their devices. Once downloaded, they will need to enable the geolocation feature on Price Check which will then give them the additional 5 percent discount off Amazon’s price for qualifying products.

Ms Fouts additionally had this to say; “We want to make it as easy and convenient for customers to find the information they’re looking for, whether it’s price, product details or customer reviews. We want our customers to be able to make informed purchasing decisions.”

I have to call BS on that.  Amazon wants 1 thing, and 1 thing only.  They want consumers to purchase from them. I mean let's face it, once you're in the store you have already done your research (if you're relatively intelligent), read reviews and know what you want.  The only thing left is PRICE.

Amazon knows this (did I mention they are Geniuses?) and has given the consumers what they want; An App that let's them compare prices, instantly and in real time, and allows them to see whose price is best.

Genius.

That's what I call a great Custom Mobile App.

Cheers.
Mobile App Man