American technological know-how at it’s finest! They’ve figured out a faster way to separate money from wallet. Wait… wallet? Paper money? As if….
New form of impulse: Shopping via text message
Impulse shoppers, watch out. Your cell phone might soon get you into trouble.
A company called ShopText has introduced a system that lets people buy products instantly using text messages, a process that eliminates the need to go to a store or even visit a Web site. For instance, a woman seeing an ad for a pocketbook in a magazine can order it on the spot simply by sending the text code found beside the item through her cell phone.
“I’ve always had a dream that girls should be able to buy what’s in the magazine,” said Susan Schulz, editor in chief of CosmoGirl, which is published by Hearst. “As she’s flipping through, I want her to be sitting there with her phone with her magazine. It will be very interactive.”
CosmoGirl advertisers are able to sell or offer samples of any of their products using text codes in their ads. On the editorial side, the magazine is including the codes on many products featured in its “Hot 100” entertainment list, so that readers will be able to buy CDs, DVDs and possibly vouchers to see movies.
Actually this makes sense, a cell phone with it’s unique Serial #, identifies YOU undeniably without the use of a username / password.
In my area recently, many people got their bank cards cloned. So imagine paying a store with your cell phone instead of a bank card / credit card.
Much harder to spoof / clone a cell phone. I see this taking off with the younger crowd, that have never seen / used a Fax machine.
#1: My crystal ball predicts a lot of cell phone thefts.
Make sure to keep your phone password protected.
Uncle Dave (#2), If the vendors only ship to the registered address of the cell phone would that help matters?
I find this an intriguing possibility other than the darn cell phone providers charging $1 for every order (text message fees)!!!
#1 – As long as its only sms that is allowed – if the company that allows these purchases via sms, then it cannot allow them via the web for the same account/purchase.
That is already causing a lot of issues in the mobile world (short code messaging issues, electronic signature spoofing, man-in-the-middle attacks, etc)…
Its a good idea tho, Ive been to a few stadiums where you can text message the concession stand, and they deliver to your seat.
PayPal has been doing this for at least 6 months. They call it PayPal moblie & text-to-buy. You can register your cell phone number and then the phone is tied to your account. you enter in a PIN, just like an ATM. The system then calls you back and asks security questions and shipping info. You can easily send money phone-to-phone, phone-to-SMS It works great. Now if more vendors will just get on board . . .
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/mobile/MobileOverview-outside
What do you do when you’ve got 3 phones on the same plan and the phone billing address is in a different city? If my daughter does this, she’ll have a long way to drive to pick up her stuff.
PayPal has had Text to Buy for close to a year I think. You can also send money to someones PayPal acct from your cell phone. Its pretty cool.
It’s about time the paper publications figured out some way to tap into the internet marketing potential. Until now they don’t really seem even to have tried, and it has cost them.
No doubt there will be wrinkles to iron out. Some way to separate shipping address from billing address will be needed, for example, as ethanol noted (#3). And there will be abuses, there always are in any system. But the basic idea is sound, and much needed by paper pubs.