Amazon Pushes Hands-Free Holiday Shopping by Alexa, Adds 120,000 Seasonal Jobs

Amazon pushed holiday season ordering by Alexa in a Thursday news release announcing its 2016 holiday toy list. The e-tailer said 70 percent of Amazon.com shoppers last year made purchases using a mobile device, and shopping via mobile app more than doubled over 2014. For 2016, Amazon added a “holiday toy list experience” to the mobile shopping app. It also promoted “hands-free” shopping by Alexa this holiday season via Echo, Tap and Fire TV devices, giving the example of a customer telling a device to order Play-Doh. The Alexa engine will search for the lowest priced option that ships with Amazon Prime “and apply available discounts,” Amazon said. In another announcement, Amazon said it slotted 120,000 positions for the holiday season. Positions across the U.S. will be added in fulfillment and sorting centers and in customer service sites, it said. Last year, Amazon transitioned more than 14,000 seasonal positions to full-time roles after the holidays and it expects to boost that number this season. Seasonal jobs are being offered in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.