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Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

reuters.com

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Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#81

Post by Scoundreller »

gen220 wrote: post #31
bearbin wrote: post #3

This is a good move but several years too late. Google has already squandered it's lead in shopping when they replaced an excellent shopping search engine with a crippled advertising board that neither shows the cheapest prices nor a wide variety of products to buy. This has been compounded by introducing absolutely no substantitive improvements to the product over the past few years. Meanwhile, because nobody used t…

This behavior is explained by the fact that these departments within Google are looking at their “rivals” for inspiration, rather than the fundamental problems Google is rewarded for solving (Search, targeted advertising, IT infrastructure). Nobody will remember it, but in eBay’s early days of success, Amazon spent a nontrivial amount of engineering effort into building an auction style marketplace. They actually bui…

I don’t remember anything about Amazon auctions, but Yahoo had a pretty good auction system, but it never took off.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#82

Post by opencl »

Waterluvian wrote: post #28
MattGaiser wrote: post #15

How many people were not even aware/were barely aware that Google had a shopping service? I wasn't.

They do? I thought they have a "Shopping" search results tab that aggregates store listings. Are they skimming a fee on top of ad revenue for showing those listings?

Up until now merchants had to pay Google to show up in the shopping search results tab at all. So all the shopping results were basically paid ads.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#83

Post by reaperducer »

grawprog wrote: post #17
bearbin wrote: post #3

This is a good move but several years too late. Google has already squandered it's lead in shopping when they replaced an excellent shopping search engine with a crippled advertising board that neither shows the cheapest prices nor a wide variety of products to buy. This has been compounded by introducing absolutely no substantitive improvements to the product over the past few years. Meanwhile, because nobody used t…

TIL google has a shopping service. Which is probably part of the problem. I had no idea google even had a shopping service. I don't think i've ever actually clicked the shopping tab before. I vaguely remember when I first noticed it existed, but even when i've been looking specifically to buy something online i've never even thought about using google shopping or even really considered its existence at all until seei…

TIL google has a shopping service

TIL Google still has a shopping service.

I used it once. I ordered something very basic from a local department store. Since it was a very common item, I expected it to be shipped from the department store down the street and I'd have it in a few days.

Instead, it was shipped from a city over a thousand miles away and took almost two weeks to arrive.

I went back to Amazon and never looked back.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#84

Post by reaperducer »

grawprog wrote: post #40
oefrha wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use an ad blocker the shopping results are probably filtered out since they are clearly labeled as “sponsored”. If you don’t it’s really hard to miss the product carousel at the top of search results. I bet your case is the former.

No I just instinctively scroll past them. I've come to learn the top 1/3rd of a google results page is usually bullshit, so I ignore it.

I have that habit, too, and since switching to Duck, there have been a number of times that I've missed the result I was looking for because Google trained me to ignore the first result.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#85

Post by alasdair_ »

gen220 wrote: post #31
bearbin wrote: post #3

This is a good move but several years too late. Google has already squandered it's lead in shopping when they replaced an excellent shopping search engine with a crippled advertising board that neither shows the cheapest prices nor a wide variety of products to buy. This has been compounded by introducing absolutely no substantitive improvements to the product over the past few years. Meanwhile, because nobody used t…

This behavior is explained by the fact that these departments within Google are looking at their “rivals” for inspiration, rather than the fundamental problems Google is rewarded for solving (Search, targeted advertising, IT infrastructure). Nobody will remember it, but in eBay’s early days of success, Amazon spent a nontrivial amount of engineering effort into building an auction style marketplace. They actually bui…

>This behavior is explained by the fact that these departments within Google are looking at their “rivals” for inspiration, rather than the fundamental problems Google is rewarded for solving (Search, targeted advertising, IT infrastructure).

In Steve Yegge's post on why he left google: "You can look at Google’s entire portfolio of launches over the past decade, and trace nearly all of them to copying a competitor: Google+ (Facebook), Google Cloud (AWS), Google Home (Amazon Echo), Allo (WhatsApp), Android Instant Apps (Facebook, WeChat), Google Assistant (Apple/Siri), and on and on and on. They are stuck in me-too mode and have been for years. They simply don’t have innovation in their DNA any more. And it’s because their eyes are fixed on their competitors, not their customers."

https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/why-i-left-google-to-join-gr...

>Nobody will remember it, but in eBay’s early days of success, Amazon spent a nontrivial amount of engineering effort into building an auction style marketplace. They actually built something that was better than eBay’s model by many accounts. Nobody cared and it was shut down, because Amazon is not where people go to sell things at auction. Just like google search is not where people go to do their shopping.

For more info on "Mr Tooth" and Amazon's quest to compete with eBay, see another Steve Yegge post here: https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-...

"So, Life Lesson #2 (and this one is pretty goddamn important) is: Don’t try to beat a network by making a clone with improvements. It ain’t gonna work. There is too much gravitational inertia in the original network; nobody is incentivized to leave it."

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#86

Post by bearbin »

ignoramous wrote: post #79
bearbin wrote: post #3

This is a good move but several years too late. Google has already squandered it's lead in shopping when they replaced an excellent shopping search engine with a crippled advertising board that neither shows the cheapest prices nor a wide variety of products to buy. This has been compounded by introducing absolutely no substantitive improvements to the product over the past few years. Meanwhile, because nobody used t…

> And let's not speak of the amazon/ebay duopoly that's developed. Google could have fought against that but chose not to in the hope of slightly increased advertising revenue. Froogle (est 2002) has continued to exist in one incarnate or the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froogle Besides, Google has partnered with e-commerce firms in the US (Walmart) and in India to presumably counter Amazon. Walmart and Googl…

> Froogle (est 2002) and has continued to exist as one incarnate or the other

Indeed, this article is about Froogle (now Google Shopping search) moving back from the change Google made in 2012 to become a paid advertising platform rather than a open-index search engine.

Before they made that change and simultaneously rebranded from Google Product Search to Google Shopping you could make a search there and be fairly sure of finding lots of websites selling what you wanted, and you could compare prices between them easily. But Google didn't get a cut, so now if you repeated the same search, if you get relevant results at all you'll only get the bottom of the barrel shops with inflated prices.

Google certainly has tried to attack Amazon, but the only way they're trying to reduce that duopoly is to insert themselves as a monopoly player! By heavily promoting their advertising platform and pushing deep integrations between merchants and their platform they're forcing out smaller independent shops and marketplaces.

Trying to recreate Amazon, just better, is doomed to failure. The alternative of iterating on their at-the-time working product and extending the usability and visibility of alternative options would have been far better. Amazon's ridiculous 20% fees would get found out soon enough if consumers could actually see a viable alternative.

All that considiered, a better replacement for Paypal integrated with Google and other services is something missing from the world and it's a shame their lack of commitment meant Google Pay hasn't taken off in most places.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#87

Post by reaperducer »

judge2020 wrote: post #29
acdha wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that but G Suite hasn't notably improved in years and I don't think everyone bailing to Office 365 / Teams is doing so out of blind loyalty to Microsoft. Google needs to take the user experience seriously — things which aren't a Real Engineer's Favorite Problems™ are often just as important.

In my opinion, the Office 365 trend still stems from Microsoft's desktop monopoly and everyone being trained/taught on Microsoft Office. GSuite is doing just fine but I know of startups and "hip" medium-sized companies choosing it over Office 365 since so many people don't want to change from using MS Office; having to retrain your employees to use Docs, Sheets, and Drive might be too big of a cost.

In my opinion, the Office 365 trend still stems from Microsoft's desktop monopoly and everyone being trained/taught on Microsoft Office

I agree that was true at one time, but I don't think it's strongly the case anymore.

Users, leaders, and IT departments seem much more open to non-Mircosoft products than they have been in many decades. But for office work, few are able to match what Microsoft offers.

I'm hardly a Microsoft fanboy, and wouldn't use it if my company didn't insist on it. But I can see the merit in going with Office365 for the masses. There isn't really a strong competitor.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#88

Post by solarkraft »

freehunter wrote: post #18
ra1n85 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google is trying retail now?" was my first thought. "For how long?" was my second thought.

They’ve been doing it for 17 years now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Shopping

Could they just invert the current scheme by which they shut down businesses?

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#89

Post by daun »

I'm not sure Google can compete as much as they'd like in shopping due to antitrust issues. They acquired a price comparison company in 2011 and registered Google Comparison Inc. They shuttered that shortly thereafter. If you look at various Google corporate registrations they've have a few of these shopping and product corporations that went nowhere.

Re: Google drops charges on shopping service to counter Amazon's surging ad sales

#90

Post by bearbin »

Invictus0 wrote: post #75
bearbin wrote: post #3

This is a good move but several years too late. Google has already squandered it's lead in shopping when they replaced an excellent shopping search engine with a crippled advertising board that neither shows the cheapest prices nor a wide variety of products to buy. This has been compounded by introducing absolutely no substantitive improvements to the product over the past few years. Meanwhile, because nobody used t…

Can anyone recommend a better shopping search engine or price comparison tool?

Unfortunately there don't really appear to be many good alternatives.

https://pricesearcher.com seems to be a fairly featureful replacement for Pre-2012 Google Shopping/Product Search/Froogle, but it's UK only and I'm not sure about its long-term survival prospects (and it doesn't include eBay listings).

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