It looks like online merchant Amazon is trying to continue on it's infamous "1-Click-Shopping" marketing stroll as they started their US-based consumer service "TextBuyIt".

With the new attempt, all it takes to buy something with your cell is to send two SMS and confirm your order during an automatic system call.

According to a press release the entire buy process will take less than a minute. Starting with the article's product code (e.g. bar code or ISBN). Sent to A-M-A-Z-O-N (or 262966), it will be checked whether the article is available for delivery. Followed by an immediate subsequent reply.
If the article in question was found within the Amazon catalog, the customer receives the first two hits on his cell and merely has to continue with a select sms and wait for the automatic dialog system to call and finish the deal.

By reducing the mobile order to such simplistic sale procedures, Amazon is trying to reach into the market segment who remained yet unwilling to get involved with any complex data systems before. So if their market analysts are correct, it may very well be possible that one day most 'customers' may enter a retail or book store, only to leave empty-handed right after retrieving the product code and placing their orders online via 'TextBuyIt'. With this in mind it is fairly clear that even though highly convenient for the price conscious consumers, 'TextBuyIt' has the potential to become the very death blow for an already struggling retail sector. It remains thus to be seen how shop owners will behave. Or at least how loyal their customers really are.