I clicked on this Business Insider post that contains some perspective on what’s keeping Google executives up at night.
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.
Rarely do I bother with standard product search on Google.
I generally go straight to Amazon.
It’s not that I am deliberately avoiding independent retailers. It’s just that most other online retailers suck. Their logistics are rubbish. The user interfaces are lame. Their shopping interfaces are a flipping nightmare to use on a mobile phone. And I need to give them my life story in order to be able to complete the transaction.
The “Amazon and you’re done” slogan is a reality for me.
My tolerance is so low for poor logistics that I rarely — and I mean rarely — ever order anything that doesn’t have a “PRIME” sticker next to it. Indeed I routinely remove everything from the Amazon results that isn’t actually sold by Amazon.
Every time I order from a non-Amazon supplier, the goods arrive late. Or on an unpredictable basis.
When it’s the SAME price or often a teeny bit cheaper to use Amazon (and therefore get a guarantee of delivery), I will use Amazon.
I don’t mind shopping from independent retailers provided they’re using Amazon for fulfilment.
Because when it says “In stock” and “Will arrive before 10am tomorrow” it will. There are no surprises.
So is Amazon a problem for Google? Yes — if you’re looking at my activities. Google is rarely involved in the ‘buy’ process for me as I’m pretty much locked into Amazon. Oh, I’ll Google for research. But I’m buying via Amazon. I don’t even know what credit card is active on my Google account. If you factor my behaviour up to even just a few million people, that has to be a problem for Google.
Google is — of course — bigger than just e-commerce (or m-commerce). I’m not sure if an Amazon phone is likely to change things too drastically. It doesn’t matter what platform I’m using — I am routinely buying via Amazon. Changing my default browser or platform won’t change this.
Although Nicolas writing over at Business Insider makes this comment on a Kindle phone:
If you have a Kindle phone, which comes with free movies and books because you have an Amazon Prime account, which also gives you free shipping, why in the WORLD would you ever search to buy something through anything but Amazon?
That would change things.
What’s your view?
There’s no way that’s keep Googlers up because like you say Amazon’s ecommerce is a very small part of search.
Staying as the number one search engine and combatting upstarts in that is what’s keeping them up.