Google is Essentially Building an Anti-Amazon Alliance, and Target is the Latest To Join (recode.net)

Google and the country's biggest brick-and-mortar retailers have one main problem in common: Amazon. Now both sides are acting like they are serious about working together to do something about it. From a report: On Thursday, Target and Google announced that they are expanding what was a years-old delivery partnership from a small experiment in a handful of cities to the entire continental U.S. The expansion will allow Target to become a retail partner in Google's voice-shopping initiative, which lets owners of the Google Home "smart" speaker order items through voice commands like owners of the Echo can do from Amazon. The announcement comes seven weeks after Walmart inked a similar deal with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of products through the service. Other big-box retailers like Home Depot are also on board. Voice commerce was the core of these recent announcements, and it may someday become popular for types of shopping like reordering household staples. But that's not what is most interesting here to me. Instead, it's the promise that Target is also beginning to work with Google "to create innovative digital experiences using ... other cutting-edge technologies to elevate Target's strength in style areas such as home, apparel and beauty."

Comments

Re:Here's a odd idea:

[Frosty Piss]

Why not create a competitive service? -_-

That's essentially what Google is doing, but without the investment in infrastructure and in most cases inventory, because they don't handle fulfilment, only ordering - their retail partners handle the heavy lifting.

This sort of thing could conceivably put a serious dent in Amazon's business. Perhaps not much initially, but eventually the loss of sales will be noticed.

Amazon has a lot going for it, but a lot of "baggage" as well in terms of their impact on small and large retailers alike. Their quest for World Domination(tm) may come back to bit them. Or take a small nip in their shins...

Re:Here's a odd idea:

[someone1234]

Well, with Google, it looks like the brick & mortar stores will live on, at least for now. Amazon would kill them all, asap.
Only time will tell if Google will co-exist in a symbiotic relationship with them or is it parasitic.