Are you too shy to buy condoms? You can now do so from the privacy of your home via the click of an Amazon Dash button.
Trojan condoms are one of 77 items that have been added to the online giant’s one-click-buying program. And while the retailer set out to change how shoppers purchased everyday essentials when it launched the replenishment program last year, Amazon is also addressing — perhaps unwittingly — a common, but unspoken, shopping pain point: How to both easily and privately purchase items consumers are often embarrassed to buy in stores and online.
These include “feminine” goods, the branding euphemism for items like Playtex Carefree Feminine liners, Stayfree feminine pads and Playtex tampons, which are also new to the list of products available via Amazon’s $4.99, Wi-Fi enabled buttons. Other items available via the Internet of Things-style program include Depends incontinence products.
“Embarrassment has received sparse attention in consumer psychology literatures,” according to the study, “Wetting the Bed at Twenty-One: Embarrassment as a Private Emotion,” co-authored by Kelly Herd, assistant professor of marketing and a
“In the consumer behavior context, embarrassment may prevent a consumer from consuming a product or service or change one’s purchasing habits.” And that embarrassment extends to online buying, including purchasing items like condoms, the study said. “When it comes to online shopping, embarrassment can be triggered by the purpose of the purchase [alone.]"
But will pressing Amazon's wireless button to order condoms or tampons, for example, be a fundamentally less embarrassing process than buying them online? Possibly, says consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow. "We are our own harshest critics, and try to avoid anything that reminds us of our 'shortcomings' which — due to our puritanical roots — includes body functions and fluids," Yarrow, author of Decoding the New Consumer Mind, told Forbes. "So, yes, any purchasing mechanism that allows us to avoid dwelling on our human messiness would be welcomed by consumers."
Professor Herd isn't so sure the button will do the trick. “Our research shows that consumers consistently experience high levels of embarrassment even in private," she told Forbes. "Based on our findings, I would expect consumers to still experience elevated levels of embarrassment using the Dash button, though perhaps not as high as they would sitting in front of a screen. It will be interesting to see how the sales data plays out.”
