A few days before April Fool's Day 2015, Amazon announced its Amazon’s Dash Replenishment Service — a service that allows Amazon Prime members to replenish frequently-used products at the push of a Dash Button. While some people were bewildered or amused at first, the retail giant was entirely serious.
The principle is simple: You buy Dash Button for anything you use often, such as paper towels, laundry detergent, pet food or baby formula. If you are running low, you hit the button and voila, your supplies will magically show up at your doorsteps a few days later. Since then, the company has increased its number of available buttons to over 100 and, according to Amazon Dash director Daniel Rausch, orders have grown by more than 75% in the past three months — Dash Buttons are used more than once a minute!
But Amazon isn't done yet. This is only the first step. The ultimate goal is to create a process without physical buttons and the need to order. In a not-so-far-away future, your order will already have left the warehouse before you know you are running low!
Why am I telling you this? Well, you could say that ordering household staples has gone "Business as Usual". And this trend isn't only about laundry detergent and pet food — this is just one example of how the world around us is changing.