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Why Amazon Is Google's Real Competition
New submitter wreakyhavoc writes "Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider maintains that Amazon's reviews and One-Click ordering will undercut Google's shopping ad revenue, and that Google is 'terrified.' From the article: 'Google is a search company, but the searches that it actually makes money from are the searches people do before they are about to buy something online. These commercial searches make up about 20 percent of total Google searches. Those searches are where the ads are. What Googlers worry about in private is a growing trend among consumers to skip Google altogether, and to just go ahead and search for the product they would like to buy on Amazon.com, or, on mobile in an Amazon app. There's data to prove this trend is real. According to ComScore, Amazon search queries are up 73 percent in the last year. How could Google fight this possible threat? Perhaps they could expose the astroturfing of Amazon reviews. Of course, this could backfire, as it would also draw attention to the astroturfing, link farming, and SEO games in Google's search results."
Citation please
If Amazon adopts Facebook, or Facebook adopts Amazon, then you have a real competitor.
I'm certainly guilty of searching for products directly on Amazon, but usually if I want something quickly. I'll typically trust that the price is reasonable and Prime means it's on my doorstep in one or two days.
That said, if I want something I know will be expensive, or something even faster I prefer to check first with Google's shopping tool to get price comparisons or to find out if an item is available locally the same day. That's something with plenty of potential for monetizing and is much harder for Amazon to compete with.
I have a prime membership, so why wouldn't Amazon be the first place to look? Free quick shipping is pretty compelling. I think that is a huge reason more and more people are turning to use Amazon as first search for products.
But also, Google totally tossed this away. I used to use Google first (even when I was a prime member), searching for *product name* buy. That used to yield a lot of great price comparisons. Google changed things so that product searches suck now, it pretty much never yields good comparison results.
What can Google do to get this traffic back? The only way, would be to become a better search engine...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
amazon's "search" is presented so poorly and the sort/filtering just plain doesn't work correctly that it's essentially worthless
Firefox's search bookmarks make it all the more easier to skip search engines and search directly on another site. I have search bookmarks set up for Wikipedia, Youtube and Amazon, which together cover most of my searching needs.
they would buy it.
that I don't think Google has much to worry about. It doesn't even attempt to take the join of the words you enter, and the results are returned in essentially random order, unrefinable and unsortable. It's not bugged. It's always been so minimally functional.
It *seems* to offer more at first glance, but it's only a false hope, and results rapidly go random again. The ONLY time a multi-word search actually works properly on Amazon is when the words match a product name exactly. All other uses are broken in varying degrees, and only occasionally return something moderately sensible.
A professional outfit couldn't possibly do search this badly by accident nor incompetence, so my guess is that Amazon has deliberately made it so primitive in the name of dumbing it down for the masses. This appears to have gone off the rails though, as there was no need to break effective search so completely just to make it accessible.
Doesn't always work - depends on what you're shopping for, obviously.
Many times for home items, Homedepot and Lowes beat Amazon - including buying from my local store. The same goes for autoparts. And if you use the online coupons. many times I can get the same or better deal for parts and tools at my local stores - and I can pick it up in 20 minutes. Gearwrench tools - I can do better locally most of the time. Although sometimes Amazon has wrenches that no one carries around here. Also, during Father's Day, the auto parts stores have these incredible sales on them.
None of the above is available on Google searches. You got to hit the individual websites or call the store. Especially for the home centers because they have local pricing that Google doesn't pick up.
Books. Some lower priced books are actually cheaper at my local B&N when you include the Amazon S&H. For example, many of the cheaper paper backs list for $12. Amazon will sell it for $10.99. Well when you add the $3.99 S&H at $14.98, it more expensive than paying the $12+tx locally - and I don't have to wait when I buy it locally.
That Amazon Prime has you catering towards them and not shopping as much as you should. Although, if you stream a lot from Amazon, the Prime program looks like it might be worth it - they actually have Season 2 of "Downton Abbey" and Netflix doesn't.
People will still have to type 'amazon.com' into google first, right?
Google should skip the middleman, open their own nation wide store, deploy instant driverless VTOL drone drop box delivery right to your porch. Buyaah! All hail Google matrix. /s
Over the past year or so, though, I've found the results becoming significantly less useful. So lately I've taken to doing my own comparison shopping directly on a handful of sites that I've come to trust - sites like Amazon and NewEgg (or, for photo stuff, B&H, Adorama, and sometimes Beach).
I know correlation doesn't equal causation, but timing-wise my growing dissatisfaction with Google's offerings overall has coincided with their increasingly stronger attempts to force us into using the Google Universe for everything.
#DeleteChrome
The thing that annoys me about complaining about astroturfing on Amazon, is the concept that it would happen on Amazon with any more regularity than anywhere else that had reviews.
I feel like basically the sources with the most people providing input have the least to worry in that regard, as many other voices will drown out astroturfers.
As long as you read Amazon reviews with a critical eye, they are fine...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It has been done before...or
Google starts its own selective market of high volume products.
More than one way to beat a competitor.
I don't like either option for shopping online.
Google sucks because they're only showing results for companies willing to pay to be listed. And the listings are filled with companies of questionable provenance and security.
Amazon sucks because their search engine is the worst. Sure, if you want to buy a specific book, it's fine. But search for a type of product, and they'll give you a lot of results that do not match the search terms, and they'll price sort based on Amazon Marketplace vendors that charge $0.01 for the product and $100 for the shipping.
The best is if I can go to a specialized store, such as NewEgg, and pay using PayPal, because then I limit the number of evil companies that have my credit card. Otherwise, if I know exactly what I want, then Amazon has my credit card on file, too, and has good shipping. Too bad I don't know the other industries very well.
Have a nice time.
I want a substitute for almost every Google tool I use, and have found a few.
I kind of agree, but it's still impossible to replace them for search. I try Bing every so often, a few weeks at a time... it's still just not as good.
Also Google docs, so many people use them for sharing docs now I'd say it's almost impossible to supplant them in that area.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well Amazon is great. However, not "necessarily" the best or even the cheapest. There's a ton of browser apps that will search prices for you. And they don't do a bad job.
Half the time you'll come up with prices lower than amazon. Of course you have to consider the company, return policy etc., but more often than not I don't buy at amazon like I used to anymore. Too many better deals elsewhere. Especially since there are so many 3rd parties on their site anymore. You really have to pay close attention to where it's coming from.
Besides, they don't take paypal. ;)
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Here in the UK -- eBay, Amazon, Play.com and occasionally Argos before Google, personally, but mainly when buying media. Depends on the product.
But so does the product description. And that's probably why the search sucks. I can't always find what I want, or find out if what is there is what I want. For example, see item number 2 in my list of Things I want to buy. Or maybe no one makes good quality stuff these days.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I always go to Amazon first for product searching, then turn to Google for reviews. Google shopping is simply pathetic -- sorry Newegg and Nextag, never used you never will -- and their listed vendors simply can not match Amazon's pricing and turnaround -- especially since I am a Prime Subscriber.
Recently however, I've largely stopped even using Google for searching for reviews and comparative products since I've found Amazon's reviews to be more than adequate and with plenty of competitive products listed on their site.
Honestly, I think Google should reconsider their misguided foray into shopping -- it's just a ham-fisted ploy to capture data on the shopping preferences of their "user-commodities" and just doesn't stack up because it's a half-assed attempt at entering a market that they really don't understand and isn't core to their company.
I just happened to do a search on new release on Amazon. I found the results to be filled up with series of tv bygones and rereleased dvds. Mostly junk as far as I am concerned. I usually search for recent releases and then grab the ones I would like with torrents. Nothing seems to give me a reason to buy as I will only watch once and delete anyways. However, techdirt has surprised me lately with some cool tshirts and they certainly do the Cwf+RtB. Between slashdot and techdirt, I wonder where online sales will really go in the future. Newegg offers the best in prices for tech, amazon has the biggest selection. Amazon and google are secondary tools for finding interesting content, but for the most part, nothing sticks out. Content creators would heed well that we don't want their ridiculous release windows and offer a reason to purchase at a reasonable price. Otherwise, I just don't give a ?*!# about their products.
Not getting rid of the spam results and in many cases catering to the spammers.
Pulling all reviews of everything and putting it on Gminus. I'm glad I'd deleted all of my review data.
Making 'shopping' pay to place. Again I'm glad I'd pulled every review they could try and make money off of.
Changing the way their system worked when it did well for the user. That more than anything was a slap in the face and showed that they do not care for their users, they care for their customers.
Amazon's search is superior for products. Ebay's is weak and pathetic in many cases.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Content is important. Much of Apple's success is the huge catalog they have built to back up their products. In the Android space Amazon sells the most tablets by far, even if they are crap and end up on Craigslist shortly for less than half price. It scares Google that Amazon successfully took them completely out of the search revenue stream they specifically developed Android to monetize. Just like Apple showed the world how to build a modern mobile OS, Amazon is showing the world how to build better monetize Android.
They know very little, and if they are right on this - it's by accident. They are click-baiting totally, trying to get their falling readership to increase instead of what it's doing. I read all the major market rags every day, including this one - they have nice pictures. Their analysis is almost always dead wrong - use their info to trade markets only if you want to lose money.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Apple, Amazon and Google all have fully formed advertising and sales channels for products. Amazon obviously has a much broader ecosystem, google ridiculous amounts of money and eyeballs, and Apple has the slickest appliances. Microsoft could do it, but they want to glue Windows to everything, which will be their undoing. Its time to blow that product up and start over. Facebook could have been a contender, until they screwed up their IPO.
Like the man said, follow the money. Everything is monetized through advertising...tv, movies, games, the internet, etc. All of that money is spent to build brands and to sell products. Wouldn't it be cool to skip all of those intermediaries and make and sell things directly through your own ecosystem? Consider what apple did with itunes and music, only spread that around to all media and products.
How 'bout if amazon gave you a high end phone, a high end tablet, and provided you with free service on both, as long as you're a Prime customer? Oh, and the whole interface is built to help you shop at amazon? I think you'll see it...next year or so.
Google might end up offering many people free internet, in order to study all of your internet traffic and stuffing you full of ads. I have to admit that free internet sounds good, but I feel a little squeamish about someone being able to see everything I do.
Most of Google's revenue comes from AdSense on other websites. The ads in its own websites generate only a small portion of the revenue. If their product suggestion advertisements are not bringing as much revenue as they used to, then that doesn't matter because it was only a small amount anyway.
OP is right: The product reviews on Amazon's web site are incredibly useful. Whenever I'm considering buying a book - or even a toy - I head to Amazon.
But one serious problem the Amazon reviews have is they are getting clogged with people who give a product review full-marks and then say something inane like: "Shipping was very fast! Will buy again. A+++ recommended."
In other words they think they're on eBay. It means whenever you do check out a product review you have to wade through all these crap ones and also it skews the product scores. I raised this with Amazon a few years ago and the clerk I spoke to did delete some of them, but besides that they've sat back and let their product review database - something of great worth - fill up with crap.
For God's sake, Amazon: Fix these reviews. Tell people to review the product and not the wrapping, shipping time or the vendor. At least let readers have a button to recommend these inane reviews be checked and dropped, instead of having 31 people go '0 out of 31 people found this review useful.' How about you let us drop it entirely?
Google is a parasite. I don't pay them directly for all the great things they do. I know that my data is their product.
Amazon has earned my trust. I pay them. My data is not the product. They don't have 15 minute return policies. When i tell them something didn't arrive, they believe me and send another. I do not abuse their trust either. I've purchased $0.50 items and $1500 items through Amazon. I've needed to return 2 products in the 5-8 yrs that I've been using them. The last return was very easy and free. Amazon gift cards mean my relatives never have to worry about getting me something I'll like.
Google searches for "products" is terrible. There are too many bogus and click-thru results returned. When shopping, I usually go to Amazon first, get a feel for what is available and probably add an item or 2 to my wishlist. For heavy items, shipping can suck. I do not have "prime." I can wait 2-10 days for most items. Certain heavy items don't make sense to order, but if there's super-saver-shipping, I'm on it. Picked up a new 1500VA UPS last week that way. Amazon was cheaper than Costco.
I have never bought an ebook through Amazon.
I have never bought an music through amazon.
Amazon is not always the best price - sometimes they have really bad pricing by 20% and more. Most of the time, computers are not a good deal on Amazon. Batteries are 80% used in my experience too - need a B-n-M store for those. Amazon doesn't always have everything you need either. Sometimes my searches don't find what I need, they only find what I ask for. I'm very good at searching ...
I'll keep shopping online - amazon, newegg, frys, meritline ... and at other reputable places, not at some random search result from google. I don't do ebay or paypal either - too dodgy for me.
Amazon has earned by trust.
Google is constantly stealing my trust and has been losing it little by little every time they try to dig deeper into my private life.
Duck duck go
not affiliated other than having a duck problem, too.
Yes, I stop using Google to search for product / pricing and review - Google just go to a bunch of different web site
and no review or performance - I always end up at Amazon so why bother using Google?
Since Google removed items related to firearms from their shopping results, I have simply made it a habit to use another search service. Why should I get used to using two different search services for shopping when one will do?
When looking for non-firearm items, I am more likely to just skip Google now whether I start with Amazon or not.
Why doesn't Amazon allow for HTTPS for browsing around, just as Google does? For instance, suppose you are in a coffee shop with your laptop. Wouldn't you like to be able to browse for books, knowing that nobody is snooping on your browsing? Amazon only uses HTTPS in rare instances, such as when you are ready to check out.
Or is there something I'm missing?
What can be done to convince Amazon to use more HTTPS? If Google can do it, surely Amazon can too...
I know Google is a search company
I know Google's main income source is advertising
But that does not mean Google can not implement something that let users to rate the services/products they received via the vendors they have used - through Google, of course
I believe Google still have enough talents to implement such feature - that is, if Google wants users to participate more in their income generation
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
One of the stupidest moves that Google made is to disallow the use of Google shopping for firearms, ammunition et al.
Well, that and accepting the government's offer to work hand-in-hand with the NSA.
Is google selling books now or what?
It's not like anyone goes to amazon to search for pr0n or whatever.
Who still buys books?
Curious... How old are you?
Happens there too. The one the cheeses me off the most: Tangier Dream (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tangier-dream/id342411025). Stellar ratings and reviews, dotted with occasional "it's crap". Nothing unusual there. But check out the OTHER reviews by those reviewer -- non-existent, or telling the reader to check out "Buddy Mix" or some other piece of crap. The way the scam works is to pick something popular and write a fake review on it, adding a sentence noting that the reviewer's _other_ favorite right now is Tangier Dream, or Buddy Mix, or whatever. "Karen Rosa" on Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball: "...Speaking of cool rock tracks I just heard a great song I think everyone should check out 'Show Me A Little Leg' by Buddy Mix."...
"Karen Rosa" on Tangier Dream: "Wow...Wow...Wow!!! I think that says it all."
"Emily Love" on Kitaro's Digital Box Set: "I heard a new artist that has some asian feel to his music but also reminds me of Jarre and TD. The artist name is Eric Walker and his CD is Tangier Dream".
"Emily Love" on Tangier Dream: "Soothing and beautiful music..."
"Kristin Chan" on Digitalism's I Love You, Dude: "Also while I was looking for new music to hear I found Eric Walker and his cd Tangier Dream".
The turf war winner is "Ryan FarishFan", who has written six reviews on iTunes for a variety of albums. Each references Tangier Dream or Buddy Mix (on the same label).
Ick. I do see that at least a few of the reviews I bitched about to iTunes staff are gone now.
Everything is monetized through advertising
No. Facebook and Google are monetized through advertising. Amazon is monetized through retail sales. There's a big difference.
One big difference is that mobile is a win for Amazon. Shopping by mobile works just fine and is popular. Facebook is struggling with the painful fact that nobody really wants to look at their irrelevant ads when catching up on their friends. On small screens, there's no room for that crap. Google has the advantage that when people are looking for products, they're receptive to ads about such products, so mobile doesn't hit them as hard. (AdSense, Google ads on other sites, now 30% of Google's business, may decline because of this.)
All the ad-based companies are competing with each other for a fixed pot of ad revenue. Amazon's competition is the entire retail sector, and, having conquered the book industry, they're now taking on other sectors of retail.
You all know Amazon Prime has a lot more to do with this than astroturfing, right? I can go to Amazon and get whatever I want for 3.99 one day shipping or no-cost two day shipping. It doesn't even enter my mind to "shop around" on Google because I'd rather get it faster. The only times I end up Googling instead is when something appears to be unusually overpriced on Amazon, and even then I often run into the price benefits being outweighed by the shipping cost.
I highly regret the 3 minutes of my life I wasted on that hand-wavy TFA. It's an important enough concept to warrant a TFA with meat on its bones.
The only business plan the truly greedy pursue:
1) obtain clout
2) milk it
The first step is 90% perspiration and 10% profit. The second step is 90% profit and 10% perspiration. Personally, I find the accumulation of clout repugnant to liberal society and I never participate in closed markets when I can avoid it. Not Microsoft then, not Apple now, not Amazon in the future. (I feel no shame on cherry-picking loss leaders when the opportunity arises, but I never sign up for the "loyalty" card that comes along with it. If the cherry is sour and only the loyalty is sweet, run run run as fast as my fingers will carry me.)
So you're content for now to trust the unsinkable nature of Amazon's price competitiveness, and of course you have you eye on the life raft should Amazon flounder on an iceberg of greed. Good luck to you when that day comes.
I'm on Duckduckgo as my primary search engine. But for 10-20% of searches i did
g! query
But then i realized StartPage.com uses Google for the text results. And Startpage
has better results quality than G because there's no Google bubble-censoring.
Now it just do
sp! query
Startpage is a tad slower but here's an AdBlock filter to mitigate that,
||startpage.com/favicon.ico
||startpage.com/graphics/blue-bg*
||startpage.com/graphics/enhanced_bg.gif
||startpage.com/graphics/results_back.gif
||startpage.com/graphics/google-results.gif
||startpage.com/graphics/startpage_logo_res.gif
Besides price you need to know availability, and in my experience Amazon is pretty reliable for stuff they sell - if they take your money they have it and you'll get it. Newegg is even better. Amazon associated sellers a little less so, but still pretty good. Google product search, by contrast, fishes up a lot of con artists, corner-cutters, people who bill your card and then go looking for the product, and so forth. And of course this is partly because of vendors who game Google by spidering up millions of part numbers and descriptions of stuff they don't actually have.
Um, Newegg is an actual vendor, and in my experience highly reliable. Nextag is a price-comparison site and I agree with you on its uselessness.
The Twitbook, Yaoogle, Yelpazon shopping part is just a trite jumping off point for what I feel is a serious burgeoning problem in the marketplace of ideas. People 'shop' not just for consumer goods, but also for opinions about politics, childrearing and family strategies, education opportunities, etc. And they use the 'net as their go-to solution far more than even a library.
Perhaps more discerning people might think twice before accepting advice from "chamberofcommerce.com" (Though most probably think that is a reputable source. Let's use zealousguysinpointywhitehats.com instead.), but the average info seeker believes that the large web portals are neutral purveyors of information, when the fact is that those companies' business model is only indirectly involved with the best interests of the seeker.
Google is not a search company. Google is in the business of selling user information, and uses our need to find information to hook us. Facebook is probably more of a concern for Google here, as they are in the same business, but using a different means (by providing social networking services).
It seems to me that Apple is Amazon's real competition. Both seem to be in the business of owning your pocket through owning the channel to it.
wow, people were right, these astroturfers are getting bad...
Cheap storage VM.
Google supplanted by Amazon. heh eh hehe hahaha hahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!H!AHAHAQH!H!L!U%R)($(@*)R@) ... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
No really, dream on, that's never going to happen.