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Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

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Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#11

Post by hyperbovine »

Splines wrote: post #8

If there's one thing Amazon could use improvement on, is it's search results. Specifically, sorting them. Seriously, I just tried it now. My complaints: - Why do I have to pick a department to sort? (I can kind of understand this, but it's annoying) - Why isn't shipping taken into account when I sort? - Why are used and new prices mixed when sorting? While I understand that Amazon can't read my mind, there are certai…

Agree completely re: Newegg, and yet their lack of Prime and CA sales tax mean I never ever ever shop there anymore. The tax thing makes it a really unfair playing field and should be fixed.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#12

Post by ippisl »

yequalsx wrote: post #6

Until Google demonstrates that they understand how to handle customer service I will never use this service. Google is horrible when it comes to dealing with customers.

From what i understand ,in this effort , google only plans to be a search engine for companies who offer one-day shipping e-commerce.

I wonder if this is just google saying "get of my lawn" to amazon with regards to android.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#13

Post by jonmc12 »

I've noticed in the past that Google has special provisions for: Navigation, Autonomous Vehicle Control, or Enterprise Applications in the terms of use - http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html - 10.2c.

Google has all the data to know the exact steps between the location of the product in inventory and the location of the doorstep of the customer. I could see them reducing cost of delivery in the following ways:

1. Using automated routing tools to allocate delivery resources in real-time. Currently, a human dispatcher can account for up to 35% of the cost of a same-day local delivery. Straight from an algorithm to a mobile phone is cheaper.

2. Using delivery contractors to collect video data to help build in the direction of an even richer google maps street view.

3. Eventually using autonomous vehicles to replace the human driver. I'm not saying this will happen any time soon, but I could see certain sections of city roads being approved for autonomous vehicle use in the next 3-5 years. Especially if google is pushing it while demonstrating safety. Paying a human driver can account for up to 60% of the cost of a same-day local delivery.

Also, there are some intangible aspects of having the relationship with a customer at their doorstep. Creates some advertising opportunities and gives nice contextual data about the customer.

Anyhow, being fairly familiar with the space I think Amazon and Google moving in this direction will really evolve online retail. More shipping options on products; more goods being shipped locally (for cheaper); more control over the delivery chain; visibility of exactly where your package is on the way to your house. That is the kind of innovation we can expect to see if google finds a way to leverage its data towards lower delivery cost.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#14

Post by crcsmnky »

For awhile there was this general sense that Google was doing a little bit of everything and getting involved in everyone else's business (the root of the "what if Google decided to enter this market" question).

However, lately they've been making the news for the products they're no longer focusing on (Wave, other Labs, etc.). Could it be that with things like the UI refresh, Google+ and a shipping service (and a host of other initiatives), they're attempting to connect more with people and put out a "human touch"?

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#15

Post by ecdavis »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #9
yequalsx wrote: post #6

Until Google demonstrates that they understand how to handle customer service I will never use this service. Google is horrible when it comes to dealing with customers.

Exactly. We use Prime a lot , and for Google to convince us to switch, Google's gonna have to become a completely different company. Aside from having a lot of stuff, aside from it all being at great prices, we also know that it's backed by a company with amazing, second-to-none customer service. I've had to call up Amazon just once, for some hard-to-find solderable fuses for a special client project. The first batch…

I read somewhere that Jeff Bezos considers it a bug in Amazon's customer service system when a customer has to get in contact with them.

My impression of Google is that they feel the same way, but haven't figured out how to gracefully handle the errors those bugs cause, while Amazon has.

I've never needed Google or Amazon's customer service, though, so I'm basing my opinion on what I've heard from others.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#16

Post by ippisl »

zach wrote: post #5

With these companies constantly getting into each others' business, I'm reminded of the old joke: Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians. In just the last three years, Google has gotten…

Maybe all these companies have no other choice but to compete. If they had they would have found some way to prevent too much competition.

But the core of amazon, google and facebook is: gather all the consumers and their data , and market or sell them stuff.

And the other half of the business is: build marketplaces for vendors , be it books, physical products , ads , etc.But that's relatively easy[1], once you have the consumer side.

[1]for digital products, it's easy: if you have buyers, sellers will flock to your door and infrastructure is relatively easy.

For physical products you can build your own(amazon), you can partner with providers(current google effort) and you can partner with logistics provider(ebay). So even for physical products , it's not that difficult.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#17

Post by AJ007 »

zach wrote: post #5

With these companies constantly getting into each others' business, I'm reminded of the old joke: Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians. In just the last three years, Google has gotten…

I think what Google wants to do is fully integrate product listings with their search results -- which, they already do in some limited capacity. The best way to do a really good job of it is to have the sale of those items integrated entirely in to Google's "platform." All the other pieces, such as Google Checkout, are already in place and mature.

If Google ships, they know an item was sold and who bought it. They know everything. Their listings can be on a CPA basis rather than CPC for the advertisers (merchants.) The cost for shipping probably could be absorbed by the merchant in much the same way that merchants pay for advertising in the first place.

In the short term, it probably doesn't make much sense. In the long term, Google is probably more interested in cutting out the retail middle man then they are competing with Amazon.

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#18

Post by FaceKicker »

Splines wrote: post #8

If there's one thing Amazon could use improvement on, is it's search results. Specifically, sorting them. Seriously, I just tried it now. My complaints: - Why do I have to pick a department to sort? (I can kind of understand this, but it's annoying) - Why isn't shipping taken into account when I sort? - Why are used and new prices mixed when sorting? While I understand that Amazon can't read my mind, there are certai…

Also, sorting by reviews is broken (in the sense of being useful). A product with a single rating of 5 stars should not be ranked above a product with 1000 five-star ratings and 1 four-star rating. It's a really easy problem to solve too...

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#19

Post by r00fus »

FaceKicker wrote: post #18
Splines wrote: post #8

If there's one thing Amazon could use improvement on, is it's search results. Specifically, sorting them. Seriously, I just tried it now. My complaints: - Why do I have to pick a department to sort? (I can kind of understand this, but it's annoying) - Why isn't shipping taken into account when I sort? - Why are used and new prices mixed when sorting? While I understand that Amazon can't read my mind, there are certai…

Also, sorting by reviews is broken (in the sense of being useful). A product with a single rating of 5 stars should not be ranked above a product with 1000 five-star ratings and 1 four-star rating. It's a really easy problem to solve too...

The silly thing is that IMDB figured out ranking in 1997 by using a beysian posterior mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database#Ranking...

(guess who has owned IMDB for over 10 years?)

Re: Google is Creating an Amazon Prime Competitor

#20

Post by r00fus »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #10
fufulabs wrote: post #3

Google is dipping its hand at EVERYTHING I wouldn't be surprised if it would go and compete with a custom cupcake business soon (taste graph + location + social "share my cupcake" potential)

A client gave me an earful just yesterday because I recommended using Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer; she felt like Google was "too big" and didn't trust them anymore. I tried explaining that Chrome was a safe product anyway, but she wasn't having it. I don't think this is a widespread problem, but it might not be too far away.

Firefox is the safe alternative here. For years, I've setup users with Firefox, and IETab for those specific (now mostly intranet like Outlook web mail) sites that play better with IE.

Some folks grok Chrome, and that's good... but it's for more savvy/advanced users.

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