
The 800 Pound Gorilla Amazon Tried to Kill is Google's Trojan Horse - tipsy
http://blog.jasonshah.org/post/52231809114/the-800-pound-gorilla-amazon-tried-to-kill-is-googles
======
msg
The article does not compare apples to apples unfortunately.

The author compares buying a shoe rack on Google Shopping Express to buying on
Amazon. He is impressed that a plywood laminated shoe rack sourced by Target
is only $12 while a bamboo shoe rack on Amazon is $20, and makes much of
imagining, zomg-like, 50% savings on his Amazon purchases over the year.

If you look at the same Amazon search results page where the author finds the
bamboo rack, there is a serviceable resin rack for $13 (the author is
obviously not going high-end with his plywood one). Four results down from his
bamboo rack is a natural wood rack for under $16.

The real gorilla horse in the room is that the author goes on to lament $5
shipping for Google, which swamps any savings he was getting by going with
inferior product. "Now, Google has to make sure its free delivery thing
becomes well adopted the way Amazon Prime was, because the $4.99 delivery was
a non-starter for me, and ruined the economics."

Twist ending?

~~~
jmillikin
Scroll down further. The author found the same laminated shoe rack on Amazon
for $16.17, and notes that having a Shopping membership (equivalent to Amazon
Prime membership) removes the shipping fee. That means that a price comparison
of the same product was $16.17 vs $13.24.

Personally I think fretting over three dollars on a shoerack is a bit silly,
since the shoes it's holding will each be at least an order of magnitude more
expensive than the rack.

Also relevant:
[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Sam_Vimes_Theory_...](http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice)

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nostromo
If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars.

Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered
with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via
automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon.

Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google
Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing,
automated vehicles, and, of course, eyeballs.

~~~
aylons
Ahn? I think a self-driving car would still need someone to carry the product
from the car to the door, or am I missing something?

~~~
yid
Rumors are that Google is testing a grocery-delivery bipedal robot that can
climb stairs, use the elevator, etc.

~~~
briancaw2
I envy the teenagers of the future. They are going to have such wonderful
targets of vandalism and destruction. However, it will make sad when Google
adds defense mechanisms to the robots and skynet goes live.

------
famousactress
TL/DR: I (would have) used this new google shopping thing (once) and would
have saved money, except for shipping. Amazon better be terrified.

Sheesh. Not that Google's tool doesn't have merit, it might.. but we'll have
to wait for someone to write an article worth reading. This is silly.

~~~
yid
In fairness, he saved almost $3.

~~~
famousactress
Well in actual fairness, he did not because he didn't purchase anything.

------
btilly
It is worthwhile to pay attention to history.

Internet shopping has a good historical analog. Mail order catalogs. It took a
long time for things to settle down, but eventually everyone wound up with
both mailorder and retail outlets.

Even the 800 pound gorilla of mailorder, Sears Roebuck, became a hybrid. It
took decades before they opened their first store, but today it is mostly
known as a chain of department stores.

I am sure that the same will eventually happen to Amazon. However not for a
long time.

~~~
ippisl
Mail order catalogs never offered the opportunity to transcend the experience
at a store.

Digital experiences do theoretically offer that possibility. One example is
using virtual augmented reality to see how that shoe rack will look in you're
home, how does it combines with your wall and floor colors, etc.

And this "digital better than real" has already started todat. Some high
quality furniture retailers or hotels(forgot which) ,use computer generated
models for their catalogs, not carpentry and photography.

~~~
btilly
I agree that web sites do more than mail order did. And can do more in the
future. But the fundamental similarity is there in the convenient to buy /
don't get to physically interact / slow to arrive vs having to go to a
specific place / get to physically interact / walk out with the item you want
minutes later.

Also I remember my mother taking out a catalog, putting the picture of the
thing she wanted in the place she wanted it, then standing back to better
imagine how its colors would fit in. That is a valuable feature that you can't
get in a store. (Things do look different in different lighting.)

~~~
ippisl
1\. convenient to buy - online will probably win , i think. From my personal
perspective it's more convenient now for many products.

2\. don't get to physically interact - most products don't need physical
interaction , just visual one. And there's haptic feedback tech if needed.

3\. slow to arrive - online is improving(1 day shipping, maybe better for a
fee) and will be good enough for most cases.

And remember:store depend on volumes to pay the rent and keep the lights on.
Once online takes enough market share from them, they'll might collapse under
their own weight. Some even start to see this happening in financial
statements of big retailers.

------
adventured
Anytime an article claims company X is going to own ecommerce, you can almost
stop reading right there.

Did you know Microsoft was going to own ecommerce too? Yep, throughout much of
the early to late 1990s, it was a common statement. Magazines ran stupid cover
stories proclaiming Microsoft would dominate ecommerce.

And a modern interface (re: Google)? What does that even mean. Like how
Craiglist has suffered immensely because it doesn't have a supposed modern
interface? It's a laughable statement. Just another indication the writer
doesn't know what he's talking about. Consumers don't care about what some
designer may think is a so-called modern interface. Consumers care about an
interface being simple, fast loading, easy to use, etc. Amazon does a great
job at that; they've compacted millions of products down to a single search
bar and a drop down nav that is very easy to use.

The extrapolation the author makes about saving $2k to $5k per year is silly
in nature. Complete nonsense. It ignores whether one product is superior to
the other, such that one is more expensive / cheaper. It ignores consumer
demand, dictating higher or lower prices. It ignores supply of the product
influencing pricing. Personally I liked the bamboo shoe shelf and would rather
pay $20 for it than $12 for the other one that I didn't like. The author
didn't even bother to actually compare products. The caveat at the bottom
nullifies the entire point of the post.

------
acturbo
quote from the article: "I’d pay 20-50% more for products just to avoid the
inconvenience (and corresponding delay) in going to a physical store, like
Target."

i stopped reading after that.

~~~
bluedino
Exactly. The level of disconnect is concerning. Most people are shopping at
Target or Walmart because things are 20% cheaper there.

~~~
Dylan16807
For bulk purchases like groceries, that's great. If you're buying $12 worth of
stuff, heading to the store is a waste of expensive gas.

------
runako
Next post: Google customer service vs. Amazon customer service.

~~~
yoster
Everyone knows how that would turn out...

------
ljd
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001M2D9D0>

~~~
wheaties
With shipping Google is now more expensive. Author needs to realize that
prices fluctuate on Amazon.

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leef
This might be nice for one off orders of brand name items but it doesn't look
to really challenge Amazon or any e-retailer that manages its own inventory.
There are at least two main issues I see:

1) Selection - It’s easy to sell the popular stuff. It’s hard to sell the tail
of demand. Aggregating together big box retailers can never compete on
selection. People want to order things together, from the same place.
Selection is crucial.

2) Supply Chain - It’s hard enough to have an effective supply chain when all
the inventory is under your control. It will be nearly impossible to deal with
N retailers supply chain systems - inventory availability, location, cross-
company orders, etc and be efficient enough to make a buck.

Unless Google is willing to physically get in the game and manage some
warehouses I don’t see this being much of a threat although it might provide
some nice competition for next and same day orders.

~~~
ippisl
If amazon's big plan is to gain a monopoly like status , which many investors
think it is, this competition and price erosion is a big threat both to future
amazon and it's current investors.

And hurting the stock is a good way as any to hurt a company.

------
umsm
I don't think that the author is really comparing apples to apples. The
products are different and the prices are different.

That being said, most of the time when comparing amazon to local retailers, I
notice the price is almost identical, except for tax.

~~~
enthalpyx
Especially when the author could actually do an apple-to-apples comparison.
The shoe organizer that cost $18 at Google (with shipping) is $16 at Amazon
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001M2D9D0>

~~~
jason_shah
Free shipping on both products puts it at $13.24 on Google [1] and $16.17 on
Amazon [2]. But yes, my post could have been much more objective and
scientific.

[1] Google
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbnpel7w2mscpv2/google_express_pro...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbnpel7w2mscpv2/google_express_product_1.png)
[2] Amazon
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh0rcveo1sqtmgw/amazon_prime_produ...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gh0rcveo1sqtmgw/amazon_prime_product_1.png)

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anigbrowl
Mixed metaphors, n=1, and the shock of the new. The interesting thing here is
that Google seems competitive on item choice and offers Amazon some meaningful
competition.

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Helpful_Bunny
I'll post this here, since his site would not let anonymous posting go forward
(might be a discuss issue).

> Ouch, this is a really sad comment on Harvard these days; I'd be ashamed if
> a 14 year old made this qualitative vrs quantitative category mistake.
> (Which you since fixed, but please - it should never have been written).

Try looking into GOOGs shipping network, and compare it against AMZNs. Since
we have long term data on AMZNs model (including $775 mil on a robot
production facility):

1) Is GOOG outsourcing or doing this internally?

1a) If not, who are they using?

1b) If they are, where is the spend in their yearly budget reports? (Not
seeing it)

2) Can they match the coverage that AMZN has?

3) Can they match the volume that AMZN has?

4) Can they hope to catch up before AMZN makes the robot jump it's planning?

And so on.

You're almost an adult - try to analyze the world a little closer, you're
allegedly the elite of America.

Is HN really this naive? This is _terrible_ , if this was from an Oxford or
Cambridge student - well, sorry, I'd hope they couldn't produce this level of
immature nonsense.

And yes, I suspect you'll "down vote" - but sometimes a short sharp slap
should be required.

Oh, and the heavy use of trackers is both intrusive and unnecessary for a
private site. You're not providing any service, barring selling yourself,
which should again make you pause at the "whys" of using the trackers you are.

------
aroch
OP appears to be extrapolating his money savings incorrectly? They base their
savings off of one purchase and its cost difference. There are a ton of things
I buy off Amazon that are significantly cheaper than big box stores, most of
them electronics / audio related.

------
mayank
There is an important point that is being missed, which is the main reason I
haven't used Shopping Express:

Google Shopping Express: schedule a window for delivery, during which you have
to be at home.

Amazon Prime: I pick it up at my convenience from my mailbox.

~~~
tjohns
I've been using Shopping Express for a while now, and can say that's
definitely not true. Many of my deliveries have arrived while I'm at work.

When you place an order, there's a checkbox to indicate whether you want to
require a signature, and a blank field for delivery instructions. It's up to
you: if you don't request a signature, they'll happily leave your order
wherever you ask them to.

(UPS/FedEx, on the other hand, will just leave a delivery note on my door.
Depending on how risk-averse the sender and driver are feeling that day, I can
_sometimes_ leave a signature for the next delivery attempt.)

------
pesenti
Interesting subject. I just wish the author had done a deeper study. One user,
one product bought = one article written. Wow, the standard for internet
writing is really low...

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yoster
When Google Shopping Express can offer two day shipping to the entire country,
then I will be impressed. Why is the author comparing two different products
that are not even made of the same material? I can go buy a faux leather
wallet for $5, and turn around and buy a $100 quality leather wallet somewhere
else. When it comes to wood, if you want cheap, you can get cheap. When you
buy cabinets for your house, you do not go with the cheap particle board, you
go with the solid wood. Google is great in many things, but when it comes to
customer service, Amazon wins hands down any day of the week.

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youngerdryas
>I’d pay 20-50% more for products just to avoid the inconvenience

This guy is clearly an outlier and not suitable to use for judging ecommerce
decisions.

