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Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

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61–70 of 257 posts

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either... Mobile OS's (Android) Online Video (Youtube) Online Maps (Google Maps) Webmail (Gmail) None recently, granted.

Weren't they all acquisitions?

Gmail wasn't.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#62
post #15
post #9

So many questions... the big one: How does Google make money from this?

You're providing them with market research about inventory, sales, customer demographics, ad click through, etc.... Google isn't doing this for you.

Just curious, what do they do with this data (other than maybe integrating into search)?

Do they sell it? If yes, who buys these and what do the buyers do with it?

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either... Mobile OS's (Android) Online Video (Youtube) Online Maps (Google Maps) Webmail (Gmail) None recently, granted.

Weren't they all acquisitions?

Gmail was internal. Maps was mostly built by a couple acquisitions, but it wasn't anything like Youtube, where the acquired companies were big established players in the space.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#64
post #27

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 204 times, shame on me. https://killedbygoogle.com/

Slashdot.org was plagued by people posting "first post" to every story, so they implemented an automatic "first post" comment to each article, that was removed as soon as other comments appeared. Maybe this comment ("Google will shut this down like so many other products") should be similarly posted automatically to Hacker News on every Google story?

Alternatively Google could just grow a spine and stop reinventing the same app year after year. The worst part is that they go all pikachu face when people react with wtf.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or wipe out the low commission fee competition in the payment processor space. If the US had better anti-competitive enforcement I feel like this is akin to the Internet Explorer/Netscape/Microsoft case, in them using one monopoly (search) to take over another market (same hook too: "free"). Plus you know they're going to reward sites for using this in their search rankings (or just outright place them at the top).

Love how baseless allegations like "reward in search rankings" are heeded here. If I write something egregious without a source against Duck Duck Go I'd be downvoted to oblivion

It would only be "baseless" if it hadn't happened before.

People learn from experience and the experiences of others.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love how baseless allegations like "reward in search rankings" are heeded here. If I write something egregious without a source against Duck Duck Go I'd be downvoted to oblivion

Google is pretty strict about not artificially rewarding sites in the organic rankings. (ie. non-ads and non-infoboxes). However, despite that those sites will get an implicit reward - if users go to these sites, and find a slick easy checkout and low prices, the site will satisfy their need. Google's goal is to put sites that satisfy the users search request at the top. So, assuming this new Google service is any go…

Intuitively I don't like the idea of Google controlling everything but based on the reason you gave it sounds like this would be a good idea right? Customers get a better experience in the end.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#68

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 204 times, shame on me. https://killedbygoogle.com/

"companies don't try new things" - HN "Google kills products" - HN 99% of the people here would gladly work at Google. But what's the next best thing .. downplay the company you couldn't get into :) Carry on !

Google isn’t trying new things they are re-releasing the same apps with less functionality while simultaneously killing off user bases. This isn’t some esoteric engineer criticism - it’s mainstream at this point.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#69

Free until they dominate the entire market

You really think Google -- who has floundered in this space for years -- is going to dominate a market that is already dominated by a company (Amazon) with a 50% larger market cap? Walmart and Target have been trying to chip away at Amazon's lead, and they're only getting buried deeper in the dust. Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...

No, but with Shopify, Woo Commerce, and Big Commerce - maybe.

Re: Buy on Google is now open and commission-free

#70
post #9

So many questions... the big one: How does Google make money from this?

Does this encourage or even require putting your credit card on file with Google? If so, that's actually very valuable for increasing sales of everything else Google sells to consumers.

Think of a conversion funnel[1]. At each step of a process toward making a purchase, you lose a certain percentage of users. Adding a payment method (typing in your credit card number, address, etc.) is tedious and requires you to have the card handy, so you lose a lot of people at this stage.

If more people are already past the hurdle of having a payment method on file, they can sell more apps/media on the Play store, more devices on the Google Store, more Drive storage upgrades, etc.

--

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_funnel

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