Amazon wants you to vote on new products you want them to build

Amazon has announced its own version of Kickstarter, a program called Build It, that will let consumers vote on products Amazon will produce. Like it is with Kickstarter, Amazon customers can pick a product to back and if that gets enough support in 30 days, Amazon is going to build it. Customers will only be charged if the product is developed and ships.

A program like this will help Amazon decide what products might be popular even before the company sets out to build them.

This is not the first time Amazon has tried something like this though. The company had used a similar program in the past, called Day 1 Editions, to build experimental products like Echo Frames smart glasses.

Amazon has not mentioned if there are plans to use Build for all its products or if it might be opened up to third-party inventors as well.

Over the last few years, Amazon has built a bunch of products with Alexa built in like microwaves, wall clocks and eyeglasses and many of them have failed to take off. A program like Amazon Build will allow the company to gauge customer interest in a product before it goes into full production.

For now, Amazon Build It is kicking off with three products - a smart sticky note printer ($89.99), a smart nutrition scale ($34.99) and a smart cuckoo clock ($79.99). Customers who back a product will get a pre-order discount and the price is going to increase if the product is made widely available.

The sticky note printer works with Alexa and uses thermal technology instead of ink to print small sticky notes, the smart scale can tell you how many calories are there in specific foods and the cuckoo clock works with Alexa or the Amazon Echo and has a mechanical pop-out cuckoo bird.

Amazon has mentioned in its announcement that it is not going to say how much money a particular product needs to be launched but it is going to show a progress bar that will track how far along a product is and what percentage of backing is further needed to be completed.

The current concept products will be available at promotional prices through March 19 and Amazon has said there are more ideas in the pipeline.