Google Striking Fear into the Corporate Masses

SpectralDesign writes "The New York Times reports that Google is striking fear into the hearts of even unrelated industries. From the article: 'We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board. In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby.'"

Comments

wow!

[Janek Kozicki]

funniest reason to be scared, ever.

they are saying: the cheapest on the whole world, are they lying? No, it's simply not possible

btw, castorama (like wal-mart in europe, but smaller and focuses only on things that people may use when building/renoving a house) gives warranty on their prices. Their ad is: "if you find this thing cheaper anywhere, we will return to you the price difference". I've never tried if this actually works.

That works both way

[trollable]

Yes, Google will tell you if there is cheaper somewhere else but it will also bring you customers if your offer is the cheapest. However this is not new: many services like that exist (Kelkoo), but they are limited to online shops. Google already has Froogle. The wave is reaching the mortar shops. Fine for me.

I think Nike, Reebok etc. have more to fear

[NigelJohnstone]

I doubt its Walmart that should be afraid, more likely brands like Nike, Reebok and Gucci and not only that they should be afraid of the information thats out there not the search engines that find it.

Let me explain:

A quick quiz:
Gucci is an Italian Fashion product maker right? Tick tock tick tock ..... times up.
Wrong! Gucci are an Amsterdam company that buy in practically all of their products that makes *brands* (Boucheron, Balenciaga...) they say they buy shoes from Italy, according to this guy, the Italian high-fashion shoe industry get most of the shoe from Romania and China now and as a result Italy is Europe's biggest shoe importer:
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?id =179

Quiz:
Nike are a high quality manufactured brand, Reebok are a high quality manufactured brand, Pan Shoes Bangkok are some crappy Asian brand? Right or wrong, tick tock tick tock... Wrong. Bangkok Rubber company make Reeboks for Reebok, Nike's for Nike and Pan Shoes for Pan Group (which owns Bangkok Rubber Company).
http://www.pan-group.com/

CAT Footware (From Caterpillar):
http://www.catfootwear.com/Main.aspx
Cat Footware are American made and 'Authentic since **1904***' (from their website)? Correct or not?
Tick tock tick tock... Wrong.

Cat brand products are made by Wolverine World Wide.
Here is the information saying they signed up the CAT brand in ***1994***, not 1904:
http://www.wolverineworldwide.com/brands_cat.asp

Here's their annual report:
http://www.wolverineworldwide.com/investors_report s.asp

So where are CAT brand shoes made? Read the 2004 Report, page 29.
Risk factors:
"reliance on foreign sourcing and concentration of production in China; the availability and price of power, labor and resources in key foreign sourcing countries, including China;"

Made in China.

It's not the search engines, its the information they should fear. Look at the CAT thing, I simply clicked on their financial details and did a search for 'China' to locate the information. Nothing to do with Google or Yahoo.

get used to it

[idlake]

Google isn't even the leader in web-based price comparisons. This is going to happen, Google or not.

I expect the main channel of delivery in the future will be via cell phones anyway: SMS, MMS (photo of product bar code), and cell phone browser.

I guess what he doesn't like is that, for a while, there was an information imbalance between sellers and buyers, with sellers being able to use sophisticated computer systems for pricing, but buyers being left clipping coupons. Well, that imbalance is going away. That's a good thing for a market economy and capitalism. You like market economies and capitalism, right?

WalMart: twist "better bargains are nearby" around

[Animaether]

Dear WalMart,

Why are you so afraid that Google might tell (potential patrons that there are better prices available nearby - when you, too, could be making use of this technology ?

As soon as you spot a better price nearby, drop your prices at that location - now YOU have the better price.

Sincerely,
    Common Sense

-----

Not entirely off-topic... there was a grocery store chain here in The Netherlands that would set up a mobile grocery store bus right outside a competing grocery store and let patrons of that store compare prices for the articles they had just bought by scanning the bar code. That way, they could easily tell people how much they could have saved by comparing the register stubs. More on-topic with what I wrote: *if* a product would actually have been cheaper at the store they're parked outside of, they would pass this on to corporate HQ. They, then, could issue an update to all their registers across the nation to bill that product more cheaply - the goal being to be cheaper than the competition once again.

Re:Monopolies

[LostCluster]

Google's near-monopoly in search doesn't bother Wal-Mart, it's the fact that Google has apparent interest in supplying data to shoppers while they're inside Wal-Mart.

Re:Monopolies

[whovian]

Google has apparent interest in supplying data to shoppers while they're inside Wal-Mart.

There are instances where WalMart doesn't have the lowest prices. Obviously, items on sale is one case. However, in my area the WalMart checkers will price-match if you mention another store's sale price. (Don't know if that's company policy or not.) The other case I've noticed is where one chain store's private label is priced a few cents lower than WalMart's.

But all retail stores should be wary, particularly when city-wide wireless internet takes hold. I can't begin to tell you how often I have wanted to price-compare Best Buy vs. Staples vs. Circuit City vs. OfficeMax when standing in any one of those stores.

Traditional Corporate Mindset Doesn't Get It

[salesgeek]

Last week I had a series of meetings with attorneys and accountants about a new software product. It really helped me understand the corporate mindset that pervades the industry:

* IP, in and of itself is valued by attorneys because it generates huge ammounts of billable work. No attorney in his or her right mind would recommend using anything that resembels an open source license. Too many barriers to litigation and legal fees. No huge lawsuits, no complex negotiations.

* Accountants like IP because it is valued however you need it to be.

So when I threw out the idea of GPLing the software, the result was almost comical:

* One attorney tried to explain how he needed to read the GPL. And bill me hours to do so. (not going to happen)
* One attorney suggested I'd be giving away a cash cow. I asked him: yours or mine. And the answer was a "what do you mean by that?" (struck a nerve here)
* My accountant said the intangible asset would be useful at the end of the year, and that an open source license may dilute the value of the asset.

It's very clear to me now why most business people see Google as a threat: intellectual property speculation has replaced the bilking investors with electric lemonade stands and WebVans full of irrational exuberance of the late 90's as the trendy way to make money out of thin air. Reality is going to be absolutely harsh to IP squatters & speculators:

* Innovation renders entire swaths of intellectual property useless. In the case of copyright, style and fashion relegate properties to the clearance bin or worse.

* For every piece of prime real estate, there are thousands of acres of desert, swampland, uninhabitable mountain terrain and tundra. Investors, many of which think the latest biotech idea will pay off in 10-15 years will find out that their idea isn't the winner - and will find out that a worthless patent is about as useful as an EPA superfund site is a location for a strip mall.

* Easments, emminent domain and the like have not been established in the IP world, and for the public good they will have to be. And the best ideas are often the ones that will eventually be taken via emminent domain. After all, if I can take your office park in NJ because I can put a bigger one up that will generate more tax revenue, why not take, say your one click buy or miracle drug patent because I can put it to better use for the common good?

I hope that Greenspan's last act parallels his cooling of the internet bubble: throwing a barrel of icewatter on the out of control party that the current IP feeding frenzy has become.