11–20 of 69 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that what this is? http://www.a9.com/
*That's what that was A9 failed to compete in general search, so Amazon turned it completely inward as a product search engine.
If I can't buy it via Amazon, I probably won't buy it. I trust the reviews, and I trust them to play fair if they've sent the wrong thing, to such a degree that any other avenue feels like a big waste of my time.
This was 100% true of me as well for a decade or more. But getting into the Google Shopping Express beta changed everything. Same day delivery (i.e., even faster than Prime), competitive prices, up-to-the-minute order and delivery tracking, and sharply dressed and exceptionally polite and courteous couriers, means that for a large portion of "just use Amazon" products I'm now going with Google instead. See http://google.com/shopping/express/about/.
Selection and availability are of course the caveats of the early Google tests (limited to just San Francisco and parts of the Bay Area for now), and I was skeptical at first, but boy is this a game changer if we can pull it off. I've averaged almost an order a day since we started.
Granted, Amazon's use of OnTrac in San Francisco for Prime is also a factor. I may not renew my Prime membership for the first time since it launched as a result of OnTrac's poor service here.
(Ob. disclosure: I've worked at both companies.)
If I can't buy it via Amazon, I probably won't buy it. I trust the reviews, and I trust them to play fair if they've sent the wrong thing, to such a degree that any other avenue feels like a big waste of my time.
A big one is Newegg. Most things I'll search for on Amazon first (or sometimes Google if I suspect there might be review content somewhere else). But computer parts are always cleanest on Newegg, and it's not even close. Their selection is better, and their parametrized search is far more comprehensive.
Now, computer parts are a shrinking market, and Amazon isn't hurting because of this. But I think the broader point is that while Amazon does things really well, they don't do everything perfectly. And customers (like me) are fickle, and will happily kick them to the curb if something better comes along.
Basically Amazon, for all their power, are still selling what are essentially commoditized products. And the barrier to entry there is very low for a player that can actually compete on price or quality. Whether Google is such a player is an open question.
Google is vulnerable in this case because they are acting as a middle man.
It's kinda mind-boggling to step back and think that the main service (advertising) that one of the most valuable companies in world charges for is entirely unnecessary (I put it that way because I think google provides a lot of valuable services they don't charge for). Its always fun to noodle a bit about a world without advertising. I'm sure we'd get along just fine. We'd still figure out what food, clothes, cars, household goods to buy.
If I can't buy it via Amazon, I probably won't buy it. I trust the reviews, and I trust them to play fair if they've sent the wrong thing, to such a degree that any other avenue feels like a big waste of my time.
This is broadly true for me too, but there are some notable exceptions which I think are informative. A big one is Newegg. Most things I'll search for on Amazon first (or sometimes Google if I suspect there might be review content somewhere else). But computer parts are always cleanest on Newegg, and it's not even close. Their selection is better, and their parametrized search is far more comprehensive. Now, computer…
Put more simply, Amazon's warehouses are filled with knockoff RAM chips, memory cards, and other such hard-to-identify components. Amazon isn't doing this deliberately, but your odds of getting bad RAM, HDD, or flash memory is really quite high.
It's been a while since I worked there - when I was there there was a big problem with inventory mixing. Third party merchants selling on Amazon would routinely ship items to Amazon warehouses to take advantage of Amazon's fulfillment process (this is known as Fulfillment By Amazon), and a huge amount of gray market goods were able to get into warehouses this way. Amazon's own supply chain integrity is, by itself, actually pretty good.
For a long time Amazon allowed these third party-sourced items to mix freely with the legitimate items they purchased themselves, and if you ordered the item (regardless of which merchant you ordered from) you'd be drawing from this shared pool. It was frustrating, and I'm not sure if they've fixed it yet.
I had to check to make sure that article wasn't written ten years ago. "E-commerce is clearly the future of retail and there is a growing battle brewing for dominance in this new world" Where's the 1998 time stamp?
I know it is already possible with cost per lead and cost per action but "fulfilled by Amazon" is definitely a threat for Google if it gets too big.
[1] the same thing as Robert Scoble did when he was talking about Google glasses a few weeks ago