Google adds voice shopping to Google Home

By

Susan Spies

Published
Feb 17, 2017

Google announced today that users of its Google Assistant virtual personal assistant and the Google Home speaker device will now be able to shop for everyday items with voice commands.

Users will be able to order household items — paper towels, personal care items, kitchen supplies or non-perishable foods — from Google express retailers, including Costco, Whole Foods Market, Walgreens, among others.

In a release about  the new service, Google said it planned to expand voice shopping to other retailers in the coming months and "add new features and enable purchases for other apps and services."

Purchases on Google Home must range between $4 up to $100, but that could also change in the future. In the current configuration, the user asks Google Home to purchase a given product, which then produces a results list from the service's member retailers. Similar to Amazon's Prime, Google charges a $95 annual membership fee for using Google Express, but is waving any fees through April 2017 to promote the new service.