Buy on Google is now open and commission-free • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by three_seagrass » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

cosmie wrote: post #178

skybrian wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tells us that Google isn't charging, but not what else you need to set up and how much they charge. That part seems pretty opaque.

"We're not saying you have to pay us $50/month, but what will potential customers think if your business isn't Google Guaranteed while all your competitors are..." https://searchengineland.com/google-offering-upgraded-gmb-pr...

That's not an arbitrary service. You're paying to have Google review and dispute claims for business through local services.

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

#202

Post by three_seagrass » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

aljg wrote: post #146

amelius wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that Amazon will start banning vendors that also sell on Google.

This would almost certainly be illegal (antitrust violation) and probably wouldn't be worth the firestorm even if it was legal.

Amazon banned sellers from selling anything that competed with their firestick (Chromecast, Apple TV, etc ) for the longest time.

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

#203

Post by three_seagrass » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 5:57 AM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #164

surbas wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use google for email they already have your order history...

I noticed Amazon has stopped informing you what you actually purchased in their confirmation emails (though the emails still have other purchase suggestions in them). I'm guessing that might be partially to prevent the info from being conveyed to Google in Gmail.

I can almost guarantee it's to get you to click back into the store for re-engagement.

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

#204

Post by three_seagrass » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

glaucon wrote: post #165

gowld wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone sells your purchase history to everyone, including to Google.

If I was Amazon I wouldn't be selling purchase history to Google. Why would I ? I have no need of the money and Google is one of the few entities that present a visible threat to my well being.

Amazon, like every other retail service, has reciprocity agreements with payers (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, etc.)

Amazon gives up your purchase history to get it from everyone else, for that sweet product retargeting.

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

#205

Post by londons_explore » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

xmprt wrote: post #66

londons_explore wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, although it ignores 2ndary effects (eg. Google takes over payments market, all other competitors go bankrupt, Google stops innovating because no competition, users lose out because no innovation).

That happened in things like Google Reader - users loved the service so much the industry for RSS readers died and stagnated, hurting users...

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

#206

Post by josefx » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

splonk wrote: post #195

jeffbee wrote: post #133

This doesn't seem to solve the main problem I have with Amazon: even when I know exactly what I want, it's impossible to find. Amazon hides the thing you want behind the items they want you to buy instead, and they allow fakes and spammers to flourish. They never have the right aspects in their search filters, either. Looks like Google is the same way. I can't find an A19 LED light bulb with 2700K color temperature a…

From having spoken to people who worked on object clustering for Froogle in the past, I think the base issue is that it's surprisingly hard to extract all the metadata accurately from descriptions. Even if you provide an file format and allow merchants to upload all their item descriptions with structured data, you'll still just end up getting bad data from a lot of merchants, and then you have the problem of whether…

> you'll still just end up getting bad data from a lot of merchants,

The last few times I bought anything computer related on amazon was just that. Hundreds of entries with bad and probably copy pasted technical data. They would have to vet the data at least randomly and ban problematic sellers to make their search even remotely usable. This is one area where specialized online stores outshine Amazon and it will probably remain that way.

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

#207

Post by azinman2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

frank2 wrote: post #170

azinman2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like them to add country of origin to the facets, but that would allow me to eliminate 90% of Amazon so they never will...

I think the EU requires Amazon to list the seller's country of residence.

There's a difference between listing it and being able to filter it in the search results. I'd like to remove Alibaba that gets blended in, essentially.

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

#208

Post by remir » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #133

This doesn't seem to solve the main problem I have with Amazon: even when I know exactly what I want, it's impossible to find. Amazon hides the thing you want behind the items they want you to buy instead, and they allow fakes and spammers to flourish. They never have the right aspects in their search filters, either. Looks like Google is the same way. I can't find an A19 LED light bulb with 2700K color temperature a…

Amazon's search engine is pure garbage and for a company this size, and with their status, it's quite embarrassing.

Just a quick example: I saw some nice furniture on Amazon by a brand named Rivet. Turns out this is one of their in-house brands. I wanted to know more about their other products so in one of their listing, I clicked on the brand's hyperlink, expecting to be redirected to the brand's page...

But nope, I landed on a generic search page with, among other things, metal rivet items! Truly mind boggling. So in the end, I had to use Google search to find the actual page.

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

#209

Post by reilly3000 » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 7:03 AM UTC

Has anybody seen the UX? It’s very deceptive. I went to a local business listing and tapped on Menu, expecting to see a deep link to their site. Instead it shows a Buy On Google page with hosted menu. It was hard to leave that page; my browser history could only start over the search since it was an SPA of a local listing.

Buy on Google is the new AMP, except now it’s taking over the rest of commerce, not just web publishing.

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

#210

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #133

This doesn't seem to solve the main problem I have with Amazon: even when I know exactly what I want, it's impossible to find. Amazon hides the thing you want behind the items they want you to buy instead, and they allow fakes and spammers to flourish. They never have the right aspects in their search filters, either. Looks like Google is the same way. I can't find an A19 LED light bulb with 2700K color temperature a…

They may have changed it, but a few years back I did product feeds to Amazon and had to read the documentation. Basically Amazon will only search the title of the product page, nothing else.

That's why the title of the products are stupid long with everything crammed in. But yeah, you can find anything on Amazon, the site is basically broken unless you know the exact thing you want, brand, name and all.

It's not even that good at searching books anymore.