Kenneth Wisnefski, May 12, 2014
For years, Amazon has been viewed as the cream of the crop when it comes to fast, dependable delivery. With their pristine reputation, more and more larger brands integrated their products into the Amazon shopping feed and innovations like Amazon Prime made online shopping more and more common. However, Amazon’s reign at the top has a formidable challenger as Google now has their own plans to dominate the online shopping space with Google’s Shopping Express.
Google’s Shopping Express is only available in limited areas as it currently services Manhattan and Los Angeles. The catch with the service is that Google Shopping Express will make same day deliveries of the products ordered. Big retailers like Target, Walgreens and Babies R’ Us are integrated into Google Shopping Express and thus far the demand has been overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, that the Manhattan delivery service needed to cut short the day and stop making deliveries due to high volume.
Overall, I see this as one of the best moves that Google has made in some time. It has intrinsic value that provides immediate revenue. Google has the power of their own search engine to promote this service and while Amazon is testing drones for immediate deliveries, Google is in fast motion with this new initiative. This ability to order and receive items on the same day has already begun to change the landscape of online shopping.
I predict a day where retail stores become less and less visible and are primarily just locations for people to compare products they want to purchase before ordering them online. Yes, in most cases, those purchases will be made through mobile devices – and, obviously, the deliveries will be made the same day.
While I think there is enough room for both Amazon and Google to exist in this fast growing marketplace, over time, I expect each service will become exclusive providers of product for different retailers. This ability would enable both companies to prosper, and force consumers to utilize both options based on what product they wish to purchase.
