You might not know what I am talking about when I say the Amazon Dash, so let me bring you up to speed.
A while ago I wrote this: Genius or most stupid thing ever about how much I loved the Amazon Dash Buttons. In a nutshell, pre-programmed wifi enabled buttons that by pressing once their assigned item is ordered and delivered to you the next day. There was some debate in the media about whether we wanted to live in a “push button” society but I am a firm believer that we do.
Time is short. You can’t buy it, no matter how much money you have. We are all cramming so much into our days now that we have to find ways to work smarter to buy us that extra half an hour in bed / with the children / on the beach etc. One place where I have definitely made changes to “buying time” is with online shopping. I rarely venture to supermarkets now, well not for the regular food shop anyway. I might if there is a special deal on (hello Aldi with your Jo Malone-esque candles for a fraction of the cost) but generally I do all my shopping online. From food and drink, to birthday cards and holidays. Driving into town, paying to park, lugging shopping, not being able to compare prices, its all just a colossal pain in the backside as far as I am concerned.
Give me an Amazon Dash button any day of the week. One push and the cats, dog and laundry are sorted. We can even get beers.
So those are the Dash buttons. The game changer for us now is the new Amazon Dash which we bought the minute we got the email from Amazon saying you could now buy them online. They cost £20 but if you buy it in conjunction with setting up your Fresh account you get a £20 discount so it’s free. To get the most out of if you need an Amazon Fresh account as an add on to your Prime Account, though you can use it for ordering items via your Amazon account.
Amazon Fresh is food delivery from Amazon and aims to replace the main high street supermarkets. We have been using it for months, and love it. You don’t get the Buy One Get One Free deals that you find in the main supermarkets but you do get some other price matching deals, and a lot of the food is from Morrisons so if you are used to paying for the more luxury supermarkets (M&S and Waitrose I am looking at you) you might be pleasantly surprised at the savings.
We recently did a comparison on a weekly food shop between our usual supermarket delivery and Amazon Fresh using the Dash. On an £89 order it was SEVENTEEN POUNDS CHEAPER using the Amazon Dash. And you also don’t have to pay the nominal 40p for carrier bags every time as it all comes in paper bags.
The Amazon Dash works in two ways. You either use the bar code scanner to scan an item, which is then added to your online basket. It’s like being your own check out clerk at the supermarket as you scan every item in the cupboards. Or you tell it what you want, such as “grated cheese”. Literally you speak to it. You can do this as often as you want, whenever you want, adding items to your basket throughout the week, or you can sit down and do it all in one go. Once you are ready to check out you look at the selections in your basket, adjusting the quantities, varieties etc and place your order. It is that simple
Of all the genius things that Amazon have done this is up there.
I can now sit at my desk, with a cuppa, staring out to the window and literally talk to the Amazon Dash, reeling off a list of items. Or I can flick through recipe books, menu planning for the week, talking out loud, adding things into the basket and all the items are delivered. Get your timing right and it can be the same day.
I can now do a weekly food shop in less than the time it takes me to drink a cup of tea.
And that, my friends, is a game changer