I often find myself as the power online shopper in my circle of friends. Probably something to do with the fact that I spend just about every waking hour on my computer. When I do find something that a friend or two might be interested in, what’s the easiest way to share it? I’ve been copying the URL and those can be crazy long and often don’t work when received.
Nice. I want a personal shopper on Amazon too, so your friends are really lucky to have you in their circle, I’d say. Not that there’s not a certain capitalistic pleasure in exploring the nooks and cranny’s of Amazon. There’s not much that they don’t sell, actually, from baby shoes to car tires, electric razors to, well, books. Still, figuring out what’s where and how to quickly and successfully navigate through it all can be a trick nonetheless.
You’re also right that those URLs that Amazon generates for its products can be crazy long. Like this one:
Yikes. No wonder you don’t like to share this with your friends and colleagues. It’s… long.
Fortunately the smart team at Amazon – a team that doesn’t miss a trick or feature, in my experience – has already figured out these URLs are ridiculously complicated and has its own share feature that works great.
Let’s look. Here’s a typical Amazon page, for the game Mice and Mystics:
If you look on the right under the different purchase options, you can see the “Share” options.
Let’s look just a bit more closely:
I bet you’ve seen this a hundred times. The first icon is the one we want to look at more closely. The others are to make it easy to share the product on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, left to right.
Click on the email envelope icon, though, and you’ll get a simple little box to fill in:
Fill in an email address (and note you can list a half-dozen email addresses if you’re so inclined, or even a group email address) and add a note explaining why you’re sharing that particular product.
Ready? Click “Send e-mail” and away it goes…
What’s it look like on the receiving end? Wayyy better than just a URL, I’ll say that:
So that’s the scoop. Don’t try to solve this yourself, use the Amazon share links and the results will be markedly better and more professional than anything you can do. Oh, and it’s ridiculously easy. I just wish Amazon pulled in my address book so I didn’t have to remember email addresses, but that’s another story.
Now about the Mice and Mystics game… do I really want to buy yet another board game to add to the collection? Hmmm…. 🙂
I’ve got a related question, but it’s more to do with safety and security when sending links from a website (amazon, for example).
If I’m chatting with a friend online, and we’re talking about a book or a DVD or a CD, and I send my friend an link to that book or DVD or CD, and I send him a link from amazon’s website, what exactly does my friend see when he clicks on that product link I’ve just sent him?
Does he see my name, my details/information, when he clicks on the amazon link that I’ve just copied and pasted and sent to him? How safe and secure is it to copy and paste a link from amazon’s website?
the share via email no longer works on my laptop. (It works on my Kindle fire) Facebook, twitter, Pinterest are work, i prefer email option. I think I am locked out of that option. Any suggestions?
When I click on the email box to share a product with a friend or put on linked in, I get a blue screen that says Choose and email to send from” and an X box. If I click on the blue screen, it takes to a blank email page that I cannot write on and seems inactive. I have gone into Personal Devices etc and entered both my work and personal email, still the same response.
That share window used to pop up for me in the past, but now it asks me how to share and I have 3 icons available. One that opens outlook, one that opens a gmail page, and one that opens yahoo mail.
It is there but it wont let me type in an address to send to my friend.
Ron White
ronwhite@bellsouth.net
That quit working on Amazon.
Just checked and it’s still there for me, Robert. Did you look all the way to the right on the product page?