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The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

blog.jasonshah.org

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Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#21

Post by venomsnake »

aylons wrote: post #13
nostromo wrote: post #8

If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…

Ahn? I think a self-driving car would still need someone to carry the product from the car to the door, or am I missing something?

A person can get on the lawn and take it from the vehicle. You just need to separate the inside of the vehicle on easily configurable compartments.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#22

Post by [deleted] »

aylons wrote: post #13
nostromo wrote: post #8

If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…

Ahn? I think a self-driving car would still need someone to carry the product from the car to the door, or am I missing something?

[deleted]

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#23

Post by famousactress »

yid wrote: post #18
famousactress wrote: post #4

TL/DR: I (would have) used this new google shopping thing (once) and would have saved money, except for shipping. Amazon better be terrified. Sheesh. Not that Google's tool doesn't have merit, it might.. but we'll have to wait for someone to write an article worth reading. This is silly.

In fairness, he saved almost $3.

Well in actual fairness, he did not because he didn't purchase anything.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#24

Post by bpicolo »

msg wrote: post #6

The article does not compare apples to apples unfortunately. The author compares buying a shoe rack on Google Shopping Express to buying on Amazon. He is impressed that a plywood laminated shoe rack sourced by Target is only $12 while a bamboo shoe rack on Amazon is $20, and makes much of imagining, zomg-like, 50% savings on his Amazon purchases over the year. If you look at the same Amazon search results page where…

Yeah. So Amazon didn't sell that particular shoe rack. I don't see a story here.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#25

Post by saosebastiao »

nostromo wrote: post #8

If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…

> Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles.

Are you sure about that? Self-Driving cars are currently a very limited use case. They drive, but they haven't shown to be very adept at more anomalous behavior that humans can do, such as following detour signs, following traffic officer signaling at intersections, or finding parking spots in locations where they are unlikely to be towed.

Furthermore, when you want to actually deliver something, you have to do far more than a car is even capable of, such as unlocking doors (for apartment buildings with controlled access), opening the million different types of latches for front yard fence gates, obtaining legitimate signatures from humans, determining access requirements for new locations, finding and successfully navigating staircases, escalators, and elevators, and a dozens of other tasks that are years away and not prioritized in current research.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#27

Post by saosebastiao »

nostromo wrote: post #17
aylons wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahn? I think a self-driving car would still need someone to carry the product from the car to the door, or am I missing something?

I envision getting a text. "Your pizza is here. Use code 4025 to open locker #24." "You have 20 seconds to comply." ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M

Forcing people to be home is bad enough, but now you are forcing them to drop everything they are doing. Not exactly an amazing customer experience.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#28

Post by dggrjx »

famousactress wrote: post #4

TL/DR: I (would have) used this new google shopping thing (once) and would have saved money, except for shipping. Amazon better be terrified. Sheesh. Not that Google's tool doesn't have merit, it might.. but we'll have to wait for someone to write an article worth reading. This is silly.

Agreed. This was poorly written and he compared apples and oranges. The shoe rack with thinner cutout pieces should be expected to cost more than the blocky solid MDF shoe rack.

Uninformative blog post, OP.

Re: The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse

#29

Post by fatjokes »

mayank wrote: post #14

There is an important point that is being missed, which is the main reason I haven't used Shopping Express: Google Shopping Express: schedule a window for delivery, during which you have to be at home. Amazon Prime: I pick it up at my convenience from my mailbox.

This makes it ideal for cities like NYC, where most people do not have doormen to receive packages and thus need to be home to sign for them. Being able to schedule a window for delivery would be most useful, rather than having to be home when the mailman comes.
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