Why Do I Want Do Do This?
If you arrived at this tutorial via search engine query there’s more than a few reasons that could have brought you here. Some people will be interested in taking advantage of the benefits of voice purchasing (it’s super handy to reorder something with a simple voice command when you’ve just run out of it).
Let’s take a look at how to even use the voice ordering system in the first place so you can decide if you want it on, off, or locked down, and then we’ll dig into how to do just that.
Using Alexa To Place Orders
Ordering Music
The other way to purchase music is to purchase the sample you’re currently listening to. Sometimes when you use a command like “Alexa, play ‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift” you’ll only hear a snippet of the song and will be told it’s just sample because the song is not part of the Prime music library. In such instances you can use the following commands to purchase the song or album:
Alexa, shop for [album name].
Alexa, shop for [new] songs by [artist name].
Alexa, add this [song/album] to my library.
Reordering Physical Items
The command to reorder products via Alexa is as simple as it gets:
Enabling and Disabling Voice Purchasing
If all that sounds great and you’re ready to start using your Alexa voice assistant to place orders, let’s take a moment to confirm that you have voice ordering enabled. Not so thrilled about the idea? We can turn it off in the same location.
Navigate to Settings in the left-hand menu and select “Voice Purchasing” as seen above.
In the Voice Purchasing section there is a simple toggle beside “Purchase by voice”. Toggle it on or off depending on whether or not you wish to enable or disable voice purchasing.
Securing Voice Purchasing Via PIN
While we’re in the Voice Purchasing menu, there is an additional tweak we can apply. If you wish to use voice purchasing but want to add in a PIN code to either prevent accidental purchases or other users of the Echo from making purchases without your permission, you can so do so here.
In the “Require confirmation code” section enter a 4 digit code. Select “Save Changes” once you have entered your code to commit the new security code to your Echo.
Nonetheless it’s still a nice way to ensure that anyone who has access to your Echo can’t willy nilly order things (and it will prevent the primary users from accidentally ordering things because reading off the PIN like you’re giving security clearance to the ship computer on Star Trek definitely gives you time to think about a purchase).
