Amazon: Armed to beat the recession

Gary Bacon II had bargain-hunting on the brain when he visited his local Barnes & Noble in Florida, on 7 December. But he didn't make any purchases. Instead, the web designer whipped out his smartphone, snapped a few photos, and headed for the exit.

Bacon was using a new feature, released by Amazon.com on 3 December, that lets users take mobile photos of items they want to buy, store them in an online shopping cart, and purchase them whenever they want - typically at a discount - via the online retailer. The application, designed for Apple's iPhone, gives bargain hunters on the go a quick reference for prices and customer reviews of all the items sold by Amazon, as well as one-click purchasing.

Tools such as the iPhone application are among the reasons Bacon and millions of other consumers will flock to Amazon this holiday season, even in a bleak period for retailers. In November, online shops saw their first-ever drop in sales from the previous year, a sign that e-commerce sites won't be immune to the consumer-spending slump.

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