Amazon Expands Availability of Consult-a-Friend Mobile Shopping Feature

Amazon has expanded the availability of Consult-a-Friend, its mobile shopping feature that is designed to add a social and collaborative element to shopping on the platform.

This mobile shopping feature was announced in October, when it was being tested by select customers in a number of countries, PYMNTS reported at the time.

Now, as of Tuesday (Jan. 30), Consult-a-Friend is available to all customers in the United States, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom, Amazon said in a Tuesday update to its earlier announcement of the feature.

Consult-a-Friend lets shoppers request, see and manage friends’ feedback on products on the Amazon Shopping app.

To use this feature, shoppers can hit the “Share” button and see an “Ask for your friends’ votes” button. From there, they pick their preferred messaging app and designated recipients.

Those recipients will get a message pointing them to a Consult-a-Friend link to enter the Amazon Shopping app, where they can see product details and choose a quick emoji reaction or add their own thoughts.

“Our own data supports that customers are frequently sharing products with others,” Amazon said in October when announcing the initial launch of Consult-a-Friend. “In fact, so far this year, customers used the ‘Share’ button in the Amazon Shopping app billions of times to share products via messaging services, social media apps and email.”

People crave insights and feedback on products they want to buy, to help them make a purchase decision, Oliver Messenger, director of Amazon Shopping, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in October.

As customers mull over a potential purchase, the guidance from their friends and family stands out as one of their most essential decision-making assets, Messenger said. This guidance from trusted sources can help those who may otherwise get frustrated while aggregating and sifting through feedback from the various sources available to online shoppers.

“I just used this feature when trying to decide which new TV to buy, and it was helpful to get feedback from people whose opinions I trust most on this type of purchase,” Messenger said.