Speed shopping

A company called ShopText has introduced a system that lets people buy products instantly using text messages, a process that eliminates the need to go to a store or even visit a Web site. For instance, a woman seeing an ad for a pocketbook in a magazine can order it on the spot simply by sending the text code found beside the item through her cellphone.

To use the system, a consumer must first place a phone call to ShopText to set up an account, specifying a shipping address and card account. After that, all purchases can be made by thumb.

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.

ShopText was started in 2005 within Anomaly, an ad agency in New York, and worked at first with the PayPal unit of eBay to build text-message shopping tools. In November, ShopText was spun off as its own company, and since then it has been busy trying to persuade media outlets and marketers that mobile phone shopping, or m-commerce, stands to become as lucrative as e-commerce. As with all new business launches nowadays, ShopText comes with a social-good element as a core aspect of the brand: its mantra is 'shop. sample. donate'.

“E-commerce only represents a fraction of total retail — the thing that holds it back is it’s tethered to an Internet connection,” said Mark Kaplan, founder and chief marketing officer of ShopText. “The cellphones link products to media. When people get the impulse to buy, they have their cellphones.” And even better, people have their phones with them *all the time*.

Source: New York Times.