Shop By Text

The next time you see that really cool new gizmo in a magazine ad, you may not have to remember to look it up online or recall the sales phone number at a later date. A new company called ShopText is implementing the newest form of impulse buying to become available to consumers: shopping via text message.

Customers that wish to implement a text message shopping account must first place a phone call to ShopText to verify their information and give them a credit card number that ShopText then keeps on file. After the initial setup, however, all a customer needs in order to make that next impulse purchase is the power of their thumbs on their mobile phone’s keypad.

More and more magazine articles will come with corresponding numbers in the ad that customers can text to ShopText who will fill the order, charge the customer’s card, and ship the merchandise to the consumers. The only thing the customer has to worry about is their credit card bill – the rest is taken care of by ShopText.

ShopText is a small company located in New York and was founded on the idea that even though ecommerce – the practice of shopping for goods through the use of the internet – is huge, the very fact that customers are tethered to their computers to make the purchase is actually very limiting. ShopText has taken notice of the text messaging revolution that has swept the nation and has labeled its initiative as “M-commerce”, or “mobile phone commerce.” Company founders expect that the response can be enormous as soon as it catches on.

There are several items that can already be bought through the use of cell phone text messaging, including music Cds and the latest book about the magical boy wizard, Harry Potter. Magazines such as CosmoGirl and Stuff magazine are jumping on board and will feature ads with the ShopText codes in upcoming issues. Ad executives are quickly jumping on board with the new idea and are pitching it to their clients as well. As to what items are most likely to be bought using cell phone technology, ShopText founders concede that they don’t really know – that it is still very much up in the air. Most likely smaller purchases will be more popular, but they will be bringing almost anything they can to the ShopText inventory to see what is a hit and what is a miss. Expect to see magazine ads with ShopText codes in them by the end of the year.