Today, Amazon announced the launch of a new shopping experience that is very similar to the Tik Tok service, with the aim of increasing its sales and attracting consumers who prefer this type of shopping.
The US e-commerce giant said its Inspire service is a series of short videos and images that allow consumers to explore products and ideas, and shop content created by influencers, brands, and other customers.
It is believed that Amazon designed this service to draw consumers’ attention away from applications such as TikTok, as brands can now promote their products directly to consumers.
Amazon indicated that Inspire will initially launch to a group of customers in the United States, starting this month, and will become available on a larger scale to US customers in the coming months.
The launch of the service follows tests that took place earlier this year when Amazon was seen experimenting with its TikTok-style shopping feed.
Now users can access the service by clicking on the Inspire icon in the Amazon Shopping app, which will show them a list of more than 20 interests to choose from, such as grooming, skin care, pets, toys, plants, hiking, interior design, Traveling, running, and other options that aim to display videos tailored to interests.
While Inspire focuses on short video content, it also offers support for photos, making it a cross between TikTok and Instagram. You can double-tap anywhere on the screen to like content with a red heart.
Video clips can be navigated by swiping vertically on the screen, and there are also sharing buttons on the right side of the screen, similar to TikTok.
When the user sees something they like, they can click on the small buttons at the bottom of the window that links to the product on Amazon. Initially, clicking these buttons would cause the product to appear in a window overlaid on the video, but clicking the View All Details option would take him to the item’s product page, where he could read more about it, make a purchase, or add it to a list.
Amazon says the feed will better personalize itself over time as Inspire learns more about users’ interests by tracking their engagement and likes.
In the long term, the company plans to add more shopping features to Inspire, as well as additional in-app functionality and content, to further improve the product.
