Google is preparing its entry into the world ofecommerce to undermine Amazon, which for the time being is the market leader in online sales. The web search giant thus decided to diversify its business with a range of new products that came out of acquisitions of high-potential companies and start-ups, and with the search for a new market to conquer.
The Mountain View company’s online sales for the time being take place through the Google Store site, which is completely dedicated to Big G merchandise and offers T-shirts, mugs, stickers, and other merchandise. However, Google’s intent seems to be the creation of a giant portal to sell any kind of item, just as Amazon does. What it is building is a veritable war machine composed of many components that put together will make Google a world power even in the field of ecommerce.
The first steps toward online sales Google had taken with Google Shopping, a price comparator that takes advantage of the features of the world’s number one search engine. In fact, this tool allows merchants to place paid ads that appear as internal search results and can be compared by users with other products sold online.
Then there was Google’s attempt to grab the leading couponing service. The company has long courted Groupon, which, however, has not relented. For this reason, he decided to fall back on Incentive Targeting, a company that previously operated mainly in the food industry but will now expand to all the hottest sectors of ecommerce. What made the difference in choosing this company was Google’s ability to come into possession of sophisticated proprietary technology that allows businesses to create customized offers and coupons and monitor real-time ROI (return on investment).
After couponing, Google has been thinking about shipping and has decided to directly challenge Amazon’s Locker Delivery, a parcel delivery service that allows buyers to receive their parcels at collection points in his or her city and pick them up whenever he or she wants. The company’s move was to acquire the Canadian start-up BufferBox, which was growing so rapidly that it attracted the interest of Google management.
The latest move in chronological order, however, was the $125 million purchase of Channel Intelligence, an ecommerce platform also used by giants such as Target and Best Buy that generated 15 percent of U.S. online sales of $2 billion in the past year. The strength of this system is the cloud model with SaaS (Software as a Service) function that uses a program installed on a remote server to manage sales processes.
Will Google add a new ecommerce brand to its rich portfolio of web products, or will it simply support an articulate system of seller services? We will find out in the coming months. The certainty is that he is building something new, a machine made of quality gear that could turn the market upside down. And, if we think about how Google + challenged Facebook in the social networking market, it would not be the first time that the Mountain View company has frontally attacked a leading company to try to capture its market.
