drag2share: Amazon's New Fire Phone Is A Nightmare For Retailers (AMZN)
Amazon just unveiled a new smartphone called the Fire Phone.
The phone makes Amazon an even bigger threat to brick-and-mortar retailers thanks to a feature called Firefly.
Firefly allows you to scan items in-person and encourages you to buy them on Amazon instead.
In other words, Fire has a built-in showrooming tool.
The feature "turns the Fire Phone into a sort of universal object scanner that'll recognize books, DVDs, or jars of Nutella, and help you buy them—from Amazon," writes Robert Sorokanich at Gizmodo.
Amazon has already taken market share from traditional retailers by offering lower prices.
The biggest obstacle it has faced is counting on customers to go to the website and look up items, rather than buying in stores.
Amazon's Firefly removes the middle man and makes shopping on Amazon effortless.
That could become a big headache for its competitors.
Firefly has other handy uses.
For instance, it can recognize a painting and immediately transfer you to the Wikipedia page.
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