Google Home teams up with UK retailer for voice shopping service

Spending your hard-earned pounds from the comfort of your own home just got a lot easier. For Brits with a Google Assistant around, that is. 

UK retailer Argos is launching the nation’s first voice shopping partnership with Google. 

Simply by saying the words, “OK Google, ask Argos,” customers will be able to reserve and buy thousands of products using only their voice, their Google Home smart speakers or the Google Assistant on their smart phone. 

“Voice technology has the potential to revolutionise how we shop”

Argos customers will still have to browse catalogues to see which products are available to purchase via Google Assistant. And for now, they also have to pick up their products themselves at brick-and-mortar Argos stores. 

The retailer is just “dipping a toe in the water” of voice shopping, Argos chief executive John Rogers told the BBC. 

Argos said in a statement emailed to Mashable that it expects to keep developing voice shopping based on customer feedback. “Voice technology has the potential to revolutionise how we shop in the future,” Rogers said in the statement. 

Voice shopping came to the UK with Amazon’s home assistant Echo in 2016, and now Google is joining in the competition with its first UK partnership. Among Amazon’s voice shopping partnerships in the UK are Domino’s and Just Eat.

OK, Google – we see you.