Amazon Is Giving Customers Coupons in Exchange for Their Grocery Shopping Data

While Amazon's push to have consumers do more shopping over voice platforms still hasn't quite caught on, the company is still hoping Alexa will come to play a role in its customers' trips to the grocery store. The ecommerce giant rolled out a new feature this month that will allow users to upload receipts from visits to physical grocery stores in order to cash in on coupons and discount offers in the Alexa app, which will then be compensated via an Amazon gift card. The rollout seems designed to give Amazon the data to build a fuller picture of its customers' shopping habits outside of the website itself, as well as to incentivize more people to use the Alexa shopping lists feature to plan their store visits. To use the feature, customers add items to their grocery lists—either by speaking to their voice-enabled devices or typing into the Alexa app—and applicable coupons then appear alongside them in the app. Shoppers upload a receipt upon purchase of a given item in a physical store in order to receive the discount offer in the form of an Amazon gift card. The company says it may take up to a week to redeem. Customers must activate the offer or coupon before making the purchase in order for the deal to work, the company warns. Amazon also clearly lays out the data consumers provide it via their purchases will be used "to improve Amazon’s customer shopping experiences," presumably by personalizing the offers and targeting other aspects of Amazon's platform. A company spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for more information on how this data will be used. Incentives for offering up data Exchanging purchase data for coupons and discounts is nothing new for any shopper who has ever signed up for a supermarket club card or any other rewards program. What is unusual about Amazon's program is it's not specific to any one store—like Amazon-owned Whole Foods, for instance—but rather, appears to be offered through partnerships with the individual brands themselves. This model isn't entirely unique to Amazon either, however; apps like Ibotta, ReceiptPal and Fetch Rewards also offer third-party coupons in exchange for data that's shared with brands. Amazon has been trying for years to push more of its shoppers to use Alexa as a platform for shopping. The company most recently rolled out a tool that allows developers to add a shopping aspect to Alexa Voice Skills. A recent survey from eMarketer found only about 5% of U.S. adults say they use voice shopping regularly, however. Still a Valuable Currency of Advertising, Location Data Is Under the Microscope