APRIL 18, 2007

Buy with Text-Messaging

Why wait? Buy now! Consumers are beginning to have the ability to purchase products instantly without wasting time waiting on the phone, online or in lines. The new m-commerce company ShopText lets consumers make donations or buy products like CDs, DVDs, concert tickets or clothes by featuring a text-messaging code. Buy by text-messaging has now become a way to purchase products on the go.

Russell Kern, director of business development for Dennis Digital, the interactive division of Dennis Publishing, which publishes Stuff, said he saw great power in the technology.

"You’re sitting in Central Park reading a magazine, and you have your phone with you, and you want information on a product or you want to purchase the product," he said. "The ability is right there."

The company is featured in magazines such as Cosmo Girl, Lucky and Stuff. 

To use the system, a consumer must set up a ShopText account with a shipping address and credit card account.

When ShopText receives text messages about donations or products, it charges the credit card it has on file for the buyer, then, if appropriate, sends the product from one of its warehouses around the country.

Text messaging has become a popular form of communication with 35 percent of U.S. cell phone users and 76 percent of 18-to 24-year-olds sending and receiving text messages according to Forrester Research.

It’s shopping made easy and convenient that is literally at your fingertips. Maybe it’s becoming too easy to buy something.