Amazon Now Allows Prime Members Send Gifts With Just Phone Number Or Email Address

Amazon has launched a new gifting feature on Monday that allows subscribers to its Prime service to send gifts to others using only an email address or phone number.

The new features is expected to roll out over the coming weeks and limited to the US and it can only be used on mobile devices for the time being and gift givers have to be Amazon Prime members.

The gift giver never gets access to the recipient’s mailing address even though Amazon has built in some safeguards.

To activate the new features, Gift-giver chooses the gift on his Amazon mobile app, selects the “add gift receipt for easy returns” options during check-out, and will see an option to “let the recipient provide their address.” The giver then adds the recipient’s email address or mobile number.

At this point the gift-giver’s card isn’t charged, but a hold is put on their payment card for the amount of the purchase.

When activated, the recipient is expected to gets a notice—via either a text message or email— that there’s a present from gift-giver waiting for her. The recipient has to have an Amazon account to accept the gift, or create one but only the giver has to be a Prime member.

According to the report, the recipient can click on the notice from Amazon to reveal what the gift-giver sent, then she can decide whether to decline the gift, accept the gift but convert it to an Amazon gift card—the gift giver won’t be notified— or, she can just accept the gift. If the recipient accepts the gift, the giver’s payment card is charged.

If the recipient ignores the gift notification entirely, it expires within a few days, and the gift-giver gets his money back.