11 ms·

Google makes push to turn product searches into cash

145 points by SREinSF 9y ago

vxxzy 9y ago
To me, this is no different than how a Grocery store does product placement. In fact, some brands pay a premium to be at the eye level. There are cases where grocery store chains promote their "value" brand above the other competition. This really isn't anything new.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wand3r 9y ago
  Google is peerless and your analogy fails to account for the store not being a disinterested 3rd party. The war between AMZN and Google is bad for consumers because of the precedents it sets as well as the actual market effects. A slightly imperfect analogy that i still think captures the situation: Google owns and operates a highway and allows gas companies to build filling stations adjacent to the highway. Amazon is only allowed to have their stations off of exit ramps
  - tracker1 9y ago
    The Amazon store app on my phone indicates something different from what you are telling me.
- slivym 9y ago
  The difference is the monopolistic element. Apple didn't get screwed for bundling Safari with Mac OS because it isn't a monopoly. Microsoft did get screwed for bundling IE because they are. In the same way if you subscribe to the view that Google has a monopoly on search, then it's anti-competitive to use their monopolistic position in search to enter online retail.
  - riantogo 9y ago
    They are not entering retail, are they? Targets and Walmarts of the world are still doing retail. It sounds like they are providing an interface and charging specifically for that interface.
thecrumb 9y ago
Duck.Duck.Go.
- stryk 9y ago
  Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that, in the last several months, DDG's top search results have been getting much better? I almost always find the most relevant links at the top of the first page, and when directly comparing their results to Google's, DDG results may be in a slightly different order but they are still really close.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    DDG has been improving a lot over the past few months, though IMO it's still far from perfect. It also still lacks the math and conversion tools from google ("19 gigabit / 10000 milliseconds in TBit/s")
    - mcintyre1994 9y ago
      That didn't work for me :( Google have already indexed your comment though!
      - mcbits 9y ago
        Looks like you have to spell out the whole word terabit, or abbreviate it to Tb.
      - zaarn 9y ago
        Sometimes google is a bit fiddly with the exact formatting but they usually get it eventually. I would love a feature like that in DDG.
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      I prefix those queries with !wa. It's fairly slow, but it does much better unit conversions than Google and the scale comparisons are usually fun and often useful.
Klathmon 9y ago
[0] is the reuters article that the linked article is based on. It provides a lot more information on the plans and a lot less time spent speculating (with a very authoritative tone) the reasons behind the change. ("Anti-amazon tools"? really?) Also, it doesn't say anywhere that they are boosting amazon's competitors directly (or that they are "boosting" anything at all), just that amazon is unlikely to participate in this program that Google is creating that integrates stuff like checkout processes, carts, and payment processes into one unified system. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-retail-exclusive/exclusive-where-can-i-buy-google-makes-push-to-turn-product-searches-into-cash-idUSKBN1GV0B0?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-retail-exclusive/e...
- dazc 9y ago
  Yeah, if they wanted to 'boost' amazon's competitors they could stop having 3 organic amazon results on every product based search result. I always wondered why they were doing this, now I know.
  - devenson 9y ago
    Embrace and extend.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Google's official blog post on the subject also explains things pretty well: http://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/03/shopping-actions.html http://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/03/shopping-actions.html It's basically just a new type of search result ad that charges companies based on actual sales driven rather than just clicks, and it integrates directly with Google's own shopping cart and payment system to enable things like ordering from multiple stores at once and buying things via Google Assistant.
  - tracker1 9y ago
    Would love to see this integrated with something like https://pcpartpicker.com/ https://pcpartpicker.com/ ... Right now, I just limit their results to amazon and newegg. But if I could keep a unified cart, that makes it a little nicer of an option. On the one hand, waiting weeks for a part isn't fun since I've gotten used to Amazon's turn around time. But on the flip side, Amazon doesn't do a great job of giving you better options when shipping will be delayed, and filtering those results/sellers better.
philipodonnell 9y ago
The article does not make it clear if Google will allow Amazon to list products on an even playing field with those of the B&M retailers they mention. This is an important distinction. If they do allow Amazon to list, then it provides little benefit for B&M retailers against Amazon since there is already a Google Shopping component that provides this (except without some of the more enhanced checkout features). If they do not allow Amazon to list, its one of the most anti-competitive behaviors I can imagine, akin to Microsoft refusing to allow Chrome to run on Windows.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  I suspect this will not be "we won't allow Amazon to list", but "we've specifically designed this to be incredibly unappealing for Amazon to list". Given the mentioned notions of integrating Google with cart and payment operations, this probably won't be too hard for them to accomplish. Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. (For instance, requiring Play Books be installed to get the Play Store guarantees Amazon can't ever sign up to get Google Apps on the Kindle.)
  - philipodonnell 9y ago
    > Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. This will be an interesting legal issue when it inevitably gets into the courts. A judge will want to know from Amazon what product features prevent it from participating in Google's product and then will look to see why Google has that feature in place. If its clear its only there to keep Amazon from participating, that can be found to be the same as explicitly blocking them. If its structural however, such as an integrated shopping cart, that's much harder to argue is targeting Amazon so much as retailers that don't want to integrate carts. It still feels an awful lot like using an effective monopoly in one space (search) to try to create one in another space (buy).
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. (For instance, requiring Play Books be installed to get the Play Store guarantees Amazon can't ever sign up to get Google Apps on the Kindle.) They could, as Barnes and Noble proved when they went full Google Android from their forked version with the Nook; they won't want to for the same reason B&N didn't want to until it had proven it couldn't get anywhere with it's forked version, since it would be opening up Amazon's walled garden and letting Google's competing market in. Similarly with cart/payment integration: those don't make it impossible for Amazon to integrate. They just make it undesirable for Amazon since that's Amazon's central value proposition to third-party vendors, and Amazon has no desire to strengthen the appeal of any other platform that offers that for customers and, thereby, other vendors. Amazon isn't going to stay off because they are blocked (whether directly or indirectly), they are going to stay off because they need it to fail, because it is a replacement for Amazon's already-dominant marketplace, and any gains it makes with consumers and third-party vendors are at Amazon's expense.
jacksmith21006 9y ago
Saw that Amazon is losing product search share to Google pretty quickly. Google share increased over 25% YoY. This might help continue this trend. “Search engines are weakening Amazon’s hold on product search (AMZN, GOOGL, GOOG)” http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/google-search-engines-weaken-amazon-hold-on-product-search-2017-12-1012130557 http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/google-search...
sunstone 9y ago
Well this is what you get for pulling ChromeCast from Amazon (and other bad behaviour). If Google was as a brazen as that and started using its search results to start an Amazon competitor it would find itself in front of the beady eyed antitrust folks in short order. This is probably the best they could come up with and stay within the law.
- plandis 9y ago
  Amazon pulled Chromecast because Google blocked it from working on fire devices, afaik
  - aembleton 9y ago
    That's strange. I can cast to my firestick.
  - tacomonstrous 9y ago
    What does that even mean? It's like saying Apple blocked the Pixel 2 from working on the iPhone.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - arrythur 9y ago
    Are you referring to when Google blocked YouTube from Amazon Fire devices? If that's what you mean, then the order of events are the opposite.
gaius 9y ago
Sheer desperation on Google’s part. Customers with an intent to buy simply search directly on Amazon as first choice. You only go to an external search engine if Amazon don’t have it and then what does Amazon care if you buy elsewhere? And this undermines trust in Google’s results, it’s hard to see why this makes sense for them. It’s not like these products are big money spinners for Google anyway. They’re just loss-leaders to sell more ads.
- phillipcarter 9y ago
  > And this undermines trust in Google’s results Google has been tweaking their search results since forever. I don't see how now this undermines trust in their search results. They now want a little piece of the eCommerce pie and may incidentally help competition in that space as a result of it. How is this bad?
- tracker1 9y ago
  I'm not sure about that... I already order outside Amazon when search results show a significant price disparity between Amazon and other vendors. I usually do my product searches in Google when looking for something specific. If the Amazon result is close, they tend to get the sale. There are plenty of times they aren't.
- remir 9y ago
  Google gets a small cut of each sales, plus they don't have to maintain warehouses, ship stuff, etc... Meanwhile, Amazon's "search engine" is terrible, product listing is, in my opinion, a mess, plus there's a growing problem with Chinese fakes. I'd say this seriously undermine trust in Amazon and from what I see, Bezos doesn't seem to care. If Google can partner with a good number of reputable retailers, this could be great.
- matlin 9y ago
  Amazon is getting a growing percentage of direct product searches but Google still processes the majority of consumer searches, be it at a diminishing rate.
hxn 9y ago
Better title would be "Google plans to compete with Amazon". They are building a marketplace. Will Amazon strike back and expand to general search?
- dazc 9y ago
  'Will Amazon strike back and expand to general search?' Based on their existing internal search quality, probably not a good idea?
- puzzle 9y ago
  Amazon had what you would call a search engine 15 to 10 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  They did. It was called A9. It was a colossal failure. Man, I feel old. I forgot that A9 came and went a decade ago.
- rovek 9y ago
  I would argue Amazon doesn't even "do search" of their own inventory. Anecdotally, unless you're looking for something very specific (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S9 128gb) the results become worthless beyond the first handful, probably due to the scale of the inventory and volume of scammy vendors. I believe they have optimised this way; they know people Google for options and then return to Amazon when they know exactly what they want because of the price/saved cards/prime delivery. They didn't previously need to provide a discovery service and so they don't. This move from Google could bite hard through taking away a small part of Amazon's vendor lock-in value. Perhaps the question could be: will Google provide or incentivise vendors to provide a common rapid delivery service?
ibdf 9y ago
I think people that blindly complain about google take for granted the amount of work they have done, and the amount of free services they provide (yes yes, nothing is free, I get it). Perhaps these same people were not alive in the 90s to see how bad things were then. But yet, this war of google vs amazon only leaves customers, who don't give a crap about who wins, with less options. Do we need to pick sides? No company can provide every service you need. What happened about doing one thing, but doing it well? Amazon loses because now I don't trust them to show me the best product. Only what they want me to find. Google loses because now I don't trust them to show me the best search result. Only what they want me to find. You lose. Nobody wins. Corporations continues to profit.
- sidko 9y ago
  Your reply almost implies that Google is a charity and is providing "the amount of free services" as a public good. It is not.
  - ibdf 9y ago
    I knew this would be a comment, and thus why I said "yes yes, nothing is free, I get it"
    - whoisjuan 9y ago
      Saying "yes yes, nothing is free, I get it" doesn't explain your reasoning though.
      - Jyaif 9y ago
        http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nothing+is+free http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nothing+is+free
      - ibdf 9y ago
        Agreed. I should have been more clearer. Any time someone mentions google's free services you hear things like "it's not really free", "google is not a non-profit" and so on. I'm not defending google but they have changed the landscape of the internet as we know it, and I think people tend to take sides and forget how different things were before companies such as google (not limited to) came along. On another note, I'm often amazed at organizations this big don't crumble overtime with so many moving parts. It's practically impossible to be without fault.
samfisher83 9y ago
you could just do "Search terms" site:amazon.com if you want to just search amazon.
- overcast 9y ago
  I think I'm being conservative in stating 99% of people using Google have no idea this feature even exists. Majority of people no longer even type a domain into the address bar, they just Google the name of the website, and click on the first result.
tzury 9y ago
Amazon FireOS[1] - The OS in its tablets, Phone, Kindle, TV, and Alexa - are all Android-based OS. Given that, I would expect the folks at Amazon to "not do evil" in form of removing Google products from their virtual shelves. This is common decency and basic fairness. But heck, Amazon in 2017-2018 becoming aggressive as Microsoft used to be in the early years of this millennium. (a joke about both being Seattle based is running in my mind, but I'll skip on it). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_OS
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Google prohibits Android forks like Fire OS from using their products and services. You can't install the Chromecast app, for example, on a Kindle, therefore, a Kindle owner is unable to set up a new Chromecast without getting a proprietary "Google Android" device, or using Google Chrome, yet another proprietary Google option, to set up the Chromecast. You'll hit similar issues trying to use Amazon devices to interact with other Google hardware like the Google Home. Amazon stopped selling Google devices because Google won't permit those devices to work with Amazon's devices. Side note: You'll find "common decency and basic fairness" doesn't exist in the land of corporate business, and neither Google nor Amazon exhibit it.
IBM 9y ago
Anything Google can do to help make the antitrust case against themselves is welcome.
conductr 9y ago
Not sure how common this is but, when I know I am going to buy something I use Google to search. But really, I know I want to buy it from Amazon. I'm not really searching for other places to find it. I've just gotten used to Google === search. I know Google will help me locate the Amazon links so that's what I use. However, if I start searching for things using Google and can't find Amazon links - will I start buying stuff somewhere else? The answer is no; I will start searching somewhere else.
- blitmap 9y ago
  As an aside, it annoys me to know end that I can't sort search results in Amazon across different departments/areas by price. You have to choose a category like "Electronics" before you can do that. I wish Google made it easier to do more flexible searching+sorting on Amazon. Lately I've been trying to get more into embedded electronics. I was surprised how much cheaper it is to find things on ebay and aliexpress. The shipping is often much slower than on Amazon but I can get resistors, solder flux, esp32's, shift registers, etc -- waaaaay cheaper. Though it may be because aliexpress hosts a lot of sellers directly from China where the items are manufactured? I used to think of ebay as auction-only, but I generally research things on Amazon for product details and then go to ebay to find it hundreds of dollars cheaper. Did this yesterday with a laptop. Amazon is less risky than aliexpress or ebay, but I save more than I lose. (I swear this is not an advert)
- jws 9y ago
  Google’s search of Amazon products is frequently better than Amazon’s. For instance, I was looking for a specific long obsolete model of compact digital camera. Google easily finds to used ones for sale on Amazon. From within Amazon I never could make it give me the item, just pages of compatible accessories.
- teeray 9y ago
  Try setting your default search provider to DuckDuckGo for a while. Searching for things on Amazon as you describe becomes "!a thing I want". Bang commands[0] are life changing. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
dragonwriter 9y ago
The headline is substantively misleading; Google isn't planning to boost Amazon's competitors, it is planning on extending the degree to which it is Amazon’s competitor (which it already is, in a number of spaces, including product search and retail marketplace) by extending it's product search / retail marketplace strength. Now, unlike Amazon, Google's marketplace approach (both the existing approach with Google Express and the approach with the new offering which seems to largely involve the same partners at launch as Google Express already has) keeps the actual retailer's identity front and center, and facilitates retailer-consumer ongoing relationships as opposed to Amazon's approach which minimizes seller identity.
- tracker1 9y ago
  Beyond this, if Amazon was willing to participate, I'm pretty sure Google would let them in. However, knowing the companies from prior actions, there's no way in hell Bezos would ever allow that to happen.
remir 9y ago
I'm actually surprised Google did not do this earlier. If they can deliver a solid UX and eliminate the risk of receiving counterfeit products (looking at you, Amazon) then this could be great.
ksk 9y ago
I'd say the assumption that Google has objective results at the moment anyway is faulty. Google's algorithm is regularly gamed, every single day. Its the entire SEO industry's job to influence them. I would say that this is Google taking money away from the SEO industry, cutting out the middle man.
filterfish 9y ago
This truly will be the death of the small retailer.

145 points by SREinSF 9y ago

To me, this is no different than how a Grocery store does product placement. In fact, some brands pay a premium to be at the eye level. There are cases where grocery store chains promote their "value" brand above the other competition. This really isn't anything new.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wand3r 9y ago
Google is peerless and your analogy fails to account for the store not being a disinterested 3rd party. The war between AMZN and Google is bad for consumers because of the precedents it sets as well as the actual market effects. A slightly imperfect analogy that i still think captures the situation: Google owns and operates a highway and allows gas companies to build filling stations adjacent to the highway. Amazon is only allowed to have their stations off of exit ramps
- tracker1 9y ago
  The Amazon store app on my phone indicates something different from what you are telling me.
slivym 9y ago
The difference is the monopolistic element. Apple didn't get screwed for bundling Safari with Mac OS because it isn't a monopoly. Microsoft did get screwed for bundling IE because they are. In the same way if you subscribe to the view that Google has a monopoly on search, then it's anti-competitive to use their monopolistic position in search to enter online retail.
- riantogo 9y ago
  They are not entering retail, are they? Targets and Walmarts of the world are still doing retail. It sounds like they are providing an interface and charging specifically for that interface.

thecrumb 9y ago

Duck.Duck.Go.

stryk 9y ago
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that, in the last several months, DDG's top search results have been getting much better? I almost always find the most relevant links at the top of the first page, and when directly comparing their results to Google's, DDG results may be in a slightly different order but they are still really close.
- zaarn 9y ago
  DDG has been improving a lot over the past few months, though IMO it's still far from perfect. It also still lacks the math and conversion tools from google ("19 gigabit / 10000 milliseconds in TBit/s")
  - mcintyre1994 9y ago
    That didn't work for me :( Google have already indexed your comment though!
    - mcbits 9y ago
      Looks like you have to spell out the whole word terabit, or abbreviate it to Tb.
    - zaarn 9y ago
      Sometimes google is a bit fiddly with the exact formatting but they usually get it eventually. I would love a feature like that in DDG.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    I prefix those queries with !wa. It's fairly slow, but it does much better unit conversions than Google and the scale comparisons are usually fun and often useful.

Klathmon 9y ago

[0] is the reuters article that the linked article is based on. It provides a lot more information on the plans and a lot less time spent speculating (with a very authoritative tone) the reasons behind the change. ("Anti-amazon tools"? really?) Also, it doesn't say anywhere that they are boosting amazon's competitors directly (or that they are "boosting" anything at all), just that amazon is unlikely to participate in this program that Google is creating that integrates stuff like checkout processes, carts, and payment processes into one unified system. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-retail-exclusive/exclusive-where-can-i-buy-google-makes-push-to-turn-product-searches-into-cash-idUSKBN1GV0B0?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-retail-exclusive/e...

dazc 9y ago
Yeah, if they wanted to 'boost' amazon's competitors they could stop having 3 organic amazon results on every product based search result. I always wondered why they were doing this, now I know.
- devenson 9y ago
  Embrace and extend.
Ajedi32 9y ago
Google's official blog post on the subject also explains things pretty well: http://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/03/shopping-actions.html http://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/03/shopping-actions.html It's basically just a new type of search result ad that charges companies based on actual sales driven rather than just clicks, and it integrates directly with Google's own shopping cart and payment system to enable things like ordering from multiple stores at once and buying things via Google Assistant.
- tracker1 9y ago
  Would love to see this integrated with something like https://pcpartpicker.com/ https://pcpartpicker.com/ ... Right now, I just limit their results to amazon and newegg. But if I could keep a unified cart, that makes it a little nicer of an option. On the one hand, waiting weeks for a part isn't fun since I've gotten used to Amazon's turn around time. But on the flip side, Amazon doesn't do a great job of giving you better options when shipping will be delayed, and filtering those results/sellers better.

philipodonnell 9y ago

The article does not make it clear if Google will allow Amazon to list products on an even playing field with those of the B&M retailers they mention. This is an important distinction. If they do allow Amazon to list, then it provides little benefit for B&M retailers against Amazon since there is already a Google Shopping component that provides this (except without some of the more enhanced checkout features). If they do not allow Amazon to list, its one of the most anti-competitive behaviors I can imagine, akin to Microsoft refusing to allow Chrome to run on Windows.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I suspect this will not be "we won't allow Amazon to list", but "we've specifically designed this to be incredibly unappealing for Amazon to list". Given the mentioned notions of integrating Google with cart and payment operations, this probably won't be too hard for them to accomplish. Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. (For instance, requiring Play Books be installed to get the Play Store guarantees Amazon can't ever sign up to get Google Apps on the Kindle.)
- philipodonnell 9y ago
  > Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. This will be an interesting legal issue when it inevitably gets into the courts. A judge will want to know from Amazon what product features prevent it from participating in Google's product and then will look to see why Google has that feature in place. If its clear its only there to keep Amazon from participating, that can be found to be the same as explicitly blocking them. If its structural however, such as an integrated shopping cart, that's much harder to argue is targeting Amazon so much as retailers that don't want to integrate carts. It still feels an awful lot like using an effective monopoly in one space (search) to try to create one in another space (buy).
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Google's smart enough to know not to explicitly block a competitor, they just make it impossible for the competitor to participate. (For instance, requiring Play Books be installed to get the Play Store guarantees Amazon can't ever sign up to get Google Apps on the Kindle.) They could, as Barnes and Noble proved when they went full Google Android from their forked version with the Nook; they won't want to for the same reason B&N didn't want to until it had proven it couldn't get anywhere with it's forked version, since it would be opening up Amazon's walled garden and letting Google's competing market in. Similarly with cart/payment integration: those don't make it impossible for Amazon to integrate. They just make it undesirable for Amazon since that's Amazon's central value proposition to third-party vendors, and Amazon has no desire to strengthen the appeal of any other platform that offers that for customers and, thereby, other vendors. Amazon isn't going to stay off because they are blocked (whether directly or indirectly), they are going to stay off because they need it to fail, because it is a replacement for Amazon's already-dominant marketplace, and any gains it makes with consumers and third-party vendors are at Amazon's expense.

jacksmith21006 9y ago

Saw that Amazon is losing product search share to Google pretty quickly. Google share increased over 25% YoY. This might help continue this trend. “Search engines are weakening Amazon’s hold on product search (AMZN, GOOGL, GOOG)” http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/google-search-engines-weaken-amazon-hold-on-product-search-2017-12-1012130557 http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/google-search...

sunstone 9y ago

Well this is what you get for pulling ChromeCast from Amazon (and other bad behaviour). If Google was as a brazen as that and started using its search results to start an Amazon competitor it would find itself in front of the beady eyed antitrust folks in short order. This is probably the best they could come up with and stay within the law.

plandis 9y ago
Amazon pulled Chromecast because Google blocked it from working on fire devices, afaik
- aembleton 9y ago
  That's strange. I can cast to my firestick.
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  What does that even mean? It's like saying Apple blocked the Pixel 2 from working on the iPhone.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- arrythur 9y ago
  Are you referring to when Google blocked YouTube from Amazon Fire devices? If that's what you mean, then the order of events are the opposite.

gaius 9y ago

Sheer desperation on Google’s part. Customers with an intent to buy simply search directly on Amazon as first choice. You only go to an external search engine if Amazon don’t have it and then what does Amazon care if you buy elsewhere? And this undermines trust in Google’s results, it’s hard to see why this makes sense for them. It’s not like these products are big money spinners for Google anyway. They’re just loss-leaders to sell more ads.

phillipcarter 9y ago
> And this undermines trust in Google’s results Google has been tweaking their search results since forever. I don't see how now this undermines trust in their search results. They now want a little piece of the eCommerce pie and may incidentally help competition in that space as a result of it. How is this bad?
tracker1 9y ago
I'm not sure about that... I already order outside Amazon when search results show a significant price disparity between Amazon and other vendors. I usually do my product searches in Google when looking for something specific. If the Amazon result is close, they tend to get the sale. There are plenty of times they aren't.
remir 9y ago
Google gets a small cut of each sales, plus they don't have to maintain warehouses, ship stuff, etc... Meanwhile, Amazon's "search engine" is terrible, product listing is, in my opinion, a mess, plus there's a growing problem with Chinese fakes. I'd say this seriously undermine trust in Amazon and from what I see, Bezos doesn't seem to care. If Google can partner with a good number of reputable retailers, this could be great.
matlin 9y ago
Amazon is getting a growing percentage of direct product searches but Google still processes the majority of consumer searches, be it at a diminishing rate.

hxn 9y ago

Better title would be "Google plans to compete with Amazon". They are building a marketplace. Will Amazon strike back and expand to general search?

dazc 9y ago
'Will Amazon strike back and expand to general search?' Based on their existing internal search quality, probably not a good idea?
puzzle 9y ago
Amazon had what you would call a search engine 15 to 10 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com#A9.com_search_portal
CobrastanJorji 9y ago
They did. It was called A9. It was a colossal failure. Man, I feel old. I forgot that A9 came and went a decade ago.
rovek 9y ago
I would argue Amazon doesn't even "do search" of their own inventory. Anecdotally, unless you're looking for something very specific (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S9 128gb) the results become worthless beyond the first handful, probably due to the scale of the inventory and volume of scammy vendors. I believe they have optimised this way; they know people Google for options and then return to Amazon when they know exactly what they want because of the price/saved cards/prime delivery. They didn't previously need to provide a discovery service and so they don't. This move from Google could bite hard through taking away a small part of Amazon's vendor lock-in value. Perhaps the question could be: will Google provide or incentivise vendors to provide a common rapid delivery service?

ibdf 9y ago

I think people that blindly complain about google take for granted the amount of work they have done, and the amount of free services they provide (yes yes, nothing is free, I get it). Perhaps these same people were not alive in the 90s to see how bad things were then. But yet, this war of google vs amazon only leaves customers, who don't give a crap about who wins, with less options. Do we need to pick sides? No company can provide every service you need. What happened about doing one thing, but doing it well? Amazon loses because now I don't trust them to show me the best product. Only what they want me to find. Google loses because now I don't trust them to show me the best search result. Only what they want me to find. You lose. Nobody wins. Corporations continues to profit.

sidko 9y ago
Your reply almost implies that Google is a charity and is providing "the amount of free services" as a public good. It is not.
- ibdf 9y ago
  I knew this would be a comment, and thus why I said "yes yes, nothing is free, I get it"
  - whoisjuan 9y ago
    Saying "yes yes, nothing is free, I get it" doesn't explain your reasoning though.
    - Jyaif 9y ago
      http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nothing+is+free http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nothing+is+free
    - ibdf 9y ago
      Agreed. I should have been more clearer. Any time someone mentions google's free services you hear things like "it's not really free", "google is not a non-profit" and so on. I'm not defending google but they have changed the landscape of the internet as we know it, and I think people tend to take sides and forget how different things were before companies such as google (not limited to) came along. On another note, I'm often amazed at organizations this big don't crumble overtime with so many moving parts. It's practically impossible to be without fault.

samfisher83 9y ago

you could just do "Search terms" site:amazon.com if you want to just search amazon.

overcast 9y ago
I think I'm being conservative in stating 99% of people using Google have no idea this feature even exists. Majority of people no longer even type a domain into the address bar, they just Google the name of the website, and click on the first result.

tzury 9y ago

Amazon FireOS[1] - The OS in its tablets, Phone, Kindle, TV, and Alexa - are all Android-based OS. Given that, I would expect the folks at Amazon to "not do evil" in form of removing Google products from their virtual shelves. This is common decency and basic fairness. But heck, Amazon in 2017-2018 becoming aggressive as Microsoft used to be in the early years of this millennium. (a joke about both being Seattle based is running in my mind, but I'll skip on it). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_OS

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Google prohibits Android forks like Fire OS from using their products and services. You can't install the Chromecast app, for example, on a Kindle, therefore, a Kindle owner is unable to set up a new Chromecast without getting a proprietary "Google Android" device, or using Google Chrome, yet another proprietary Google option, to set up the Chromecast. You'll hit similar issues trying to use Amazon devices to interact with other Google hardware like the Google Home. Amazon stopped selling Google devices because Google won't permit those devices to work with Amazon's devices. Side note: You'll find "common decency and basic fairness" doesn't exist in the land of corporate business, and neither Google nor Amazon exhibit it.

IBM 9y ago

Anything Google can do to help make the antitrust case against themselves is welcome.

conductr 9y ago

Not sure how common this is but, when I know I am going to buy something I use Google to search. But really, I know I want to buy it from Amazon. I'm not really searching for other places to find it. I've just gotten used to Google === search. I know Google will help me locate the Amazon links so that's what I use. However, if I start searching for things using Google and can't find Amazon links - will I start buying stuff somewhere else? The answer is no; I will start searching somewhere else.

blitmap 9y ago
As an aside, it annoys me to know end that I can't sort search results in Amazon across different departments/areas by price. You have to choose a category like "Electronics" before you can do that. I wish Google made it easier to do more flexible searching+sorting on Amazon. Lately I've been trying to get more into embedded electronics. I was surprised how much cheaper it is to find things on ebay and aliexpress. The shipping is often much slower than on Amazon but I can get resistors, solder flux, esp32's, shift registers, etc -- waaaaay cheaper. Though it may be because aliexpress hosts a lot of sellers directly from China where the items are manufactured? I used to think of ebay as auction-only, but I generally research things on Amazon for product details and then go to ebay to find it hundreds of dollars cheaper. Did this yesterday with a laptop. Amazon is less risky than aliexpress or ebay, but I save more than I lose. (I swear this is not an advert)
jws 9y ago
Google’s search of Amazon products is frequently better than Amazon’s. For instance, I was looking for a specific long obsolete model of compact digital camera. Google easily finds to used ones for sale on Amazon. From within Amazon I never could make it give me the item, just pages of compatible accessories.
teeray 9y ago
Try setting your default search provider to DuckDuckGo for a while. Searching for things on Amazon as you describe becomes "!a thing I want". Bang commands[0] are life changing. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang

dragonwriter 9y ago

The headline is substantively misleading; Google isn't planning to boost Amazon's competitors, it is planning on extending the degree to which it is Amazon’s competitor (which it already is, in a number of spaces, including product search and retail marketplace) by extending it's product search / retail marketplace strength. Now, unlike Amazon, Google's marketplace approach (both the existing approach with Google Express and the approach with the new offering which seems to largely involve the same partners at launch as Google Express already has) keeps the actual retailer's identity front and center, and facilitates retailer-consumer ongoing relationships as opposed to Amazon's approach which minimizes seller identity.

tracker1 9y ago
Beyond this, if Amazon was willing to participate, I'm pretty sure Google would let them in. However, knowing the companies from prior actions, there's no way in hell Bezos would ever allow that to happen.

remir 9y ago

I'm actually surprised Google did not do this earlier. If they can deliver a solid UX and eliminate the risk of receiving counterfeit products (looking at you, Amazon) then this could be great.

ksk 9y ago

I'd say the assumption that Google has objective results at the moment anyway is faulty. Google's algorithm is regularly gamed, every single day. Its the entire SEO industry's job to influence them. I would say that this is Google taking money away from the SEO industry, cutting out the middle man.

filterfish 9y ago

This truly will be the death of the small retailer.