
Google is building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to join - Zhenya
https://www.recode.net/2017/10/12/16464132/google-target-retailers-amazon-walmart-assistant-alexa-home-echo-augmented-reality
======
hbosch
If I order toilet paper via my Google Home, where does it come from? Wal Mart
or Target? How long for shipping? If they send me dog food instead, how do I
get in touch with customer service? Is it Google's customer service or
Target's?

I don't see how this is a threat to Amazon. People don't shop there because
they have voice -- they shop there because I can Prime myself anything in 2
days or less and if it's messed up I can talk to a human being and find out
why. I'd hate to try and get the same kind of service via Google and Target.

~~~
viperscape
With that said, I’m really irked that amazon is using “private” shipping
companies, I’m tired of seeing joe schmoes ring my bell in their Honda Civic
or uhaul rental van, with my goods, my address, and seeing my house and
family. They even take pictures with cell phone of package at door, wtf. Is
there any background check, nope. Stick to a professional shipping company and
not fly by night, random folks please

~~~
colordrops
Have you had any actual problems with these "fly by night" shipping companies?
Do "schmoes" not work at Fedex and UPS?

~~~
Applejinx
The end game is squeezing margins down until only house thieves are motivated
to take such jobs, and either disclaiming responsibility or trying to manage
it so few enough people get attacked/robbed/etc by predators signing up to
deliver for whatever the ultra-budget-shipping thing is. And of course in the
end the whole thing gets automated, but until then the strategy is to squeeze
shipping as hard as possible, because employing safe people is part of the
margin and it's cheaper if they're a lot more ephemeral.

~~~
c22
You don't need to get a job delivering packages to rob someone's house.

~~~
jjeaff
Nor would it be a good idea or helpful in any way to a thief. You would be
robbing homes that someone somewhere has a list of, which is tied to your
name.

------
rdtsc
I talked to various developers from a few retail stores a few years ago and
they said their companies are absolutely terrified of Amazon. Developers would
be happy to use AWS but they are not allowed because it would be giving
business to Amazon.

But when there is fear, there is opportunity. So Google is using that
opportunity here. Not a bad move. Walmart is on-board as well it seems.

Saw news about Microsoft partnering with Amazon recently for some machine
learning API. But wouldn't Microsoft compete with Amazon too? Though wonder if
they are more worried about Google, "enemy of my biggest enemy is my friend"
kind of thing.

------
Jagat
So far I've ordered twice from Costco, and once from Walgreens, using google
express. Both the times my order got 'canceled' with no reason specified.
There's no "why?" link/button/reason either.

When I went to Costco and talked to the folks there, they said they don't
deliver via Google Express. And I've no idea what went wrong with the
Walgreens order, and I don't feel like trying again either.

Google needs to set higher standards for themselves and their business
partners if they want to compete with Amazon.

------
Top19
Just last night I was talking with a friend about how good Amazon is compared
to any other of the tech companies. They weren’t blamed for the elections,
they haven’t gotten mixed up with terrorists, their “personalized”
recommendations are sometimes so cutely wrong its actually pleasant to see.

I mean they still probably have too much power, but more in the sense of
Walmart in the 1990’s. Amazon might be a monopoly, but at least they don’t
undermine democracy (yet). Google as I am typing this is undermining the
electorate.

That being said, my praise of Amazon is really more praise of Jeff Bezos. If
he dies, or has a change of heart, we could be in trouble.

Also these partnerships mean nothing. I remember at Oracle an exec telling us
how many “partnerships” he announced with Apple/Samsung/whatever at SAP. They
whole point of the partnership wasn’t to “collaborate”, it was to release a
press release. What do people think happens in the end?? That the most
brilliant engineers of each company fly to a secret location, get into a room,
and then diagram (“ideate!”) a solution on a whiteboard like it’s an episode
of Numbers or Law and Order: Criminal Intent??

~~~
busyant
> They weren’t blamed for the elections

Trump has taken some shots at Amazon (primarily b/c Bezos owns WaPo), so they
have been "in the mix" w/ respect to the current political climate.

> That being said, my praise of Amazon is really more praise of Jeff Bezos. If
> he dies, or has a change of heart, we could be in trouble.

Also, if you read some other threads on HN, there is a strong sentiment that
Bezos is "shaking down" North American cities to determine which one is most
willing to bend to his will for a secondary headquarters

It's not all rainbows and ponies in AMZN land.

~~~
alpha_squared
> Also, if you read some other threads on HN, there is a strong sentiment that
> Bezos is "shaking down" North American cities to determine which one is most
> willing to bend to his will for a secondary headquarters

There's also some sentiment in the Seattle investor/business community that
Amazon is using the opportunity as a threat to the city. That it's willing to
expand somewhere else if the city doesn't become more friendly towards
Amazon's demands/preferences. This certainly lines up well with the idea that
Amazon announced a HQ2 without actually naming a city, leaving the media buzz
and PR to influence the city of Seattle.

Though these are all rumblings I've heard and should be taken with a grain of
salt.

------
throw2016
Google should be called out on their pathetic support culture. Are they afraid
of hiring support folks, if this is not ideology driving business decisions
what is? There is no way they can compete even 1% with Amazon's customer
service.

Everyone knows you can automate untill you need review at which point you need
people. No amount of machine learning can take away human review and misguided
attempts to do so simply pretend the world is perfect and ignore reality in
favour of fairy tales and ideology. Of course the customer is left paying the
price for these insane assumptions.

~~~
Chaebixi
> Google should be called out on their pathetic support culture. Are they
> afraid of hiring support folks, if this is not ideology driving business
> decisions what is? There is no way they can compete even 1% with Amazon's
> customer service.

"Google...is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its
products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it
really has little sense of how to deal with them."

[http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-
farm](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm)

------
laluser
These alliance or partnership deals rarely work out in the long-term. Voice
shopping is still very nascent. Having two companies in the shopping pipeline
can only cause problems and/or miss blind spots. Being vertically integrated
is a huge advantage for Amazon.

~~~
ceejayoz
Amazon and Target are themselves a great example of this - Target.com used to
be run by Amazon.

[https://www.geekwire.com/2011/target-finally-parts-ways-
amaz...](https://www.geekwire.com/2011/target-finally-parts-ways-amazoncom-
retailers-web-site-launch-starts-outage/)

------
mythz
Surprised this hasn't happened sooner, IMO Google controlling the online UX/AI
for products sourced from brick and mortars is the only viable e-commerce
competitor to Amazon's continued dominance.

I'm a happy Amazon customer so I wouldn't switch, but as it's always healthy
to have competition, I'd be a customer of both.

Either way handing over the user-facing UX to a major tech company doesn't
bode well for the long-term future of Brick and Mortars as Google's brand will
only become stronger with consumers who'd be a front for their suppliers that
are ruthlessly competing in a war for the lowest price.

------
sashk
Why would I order from Target, Walmart or others and then wait unknown amount
of time for delivery, when I can order anything I need on Amazon and have it
in my hands in two days delivered for free, or sometimes even same day? I
think Amazon spend great amount of money into delivery infrastructure and it
works: I rarely shop now anywhere else, because I hate uncertainly: when I
paid for something, I want it in my hands NOW. I doubt Target, Walmart or
others will able to provide this. They are not ready for online shopping.
Amazon is. And alliance will fail at some point in future, when all these
stores will decide to deliver goods themselves to avoid middle men. So no,
sorry. I don't get it!

~~~
wlesieutre
I can weigh in on this since I ordered some kitchen stuff and non-perishable
groceries from Walmart last week. I'd looked up the prices on Amazon first and
they were inflated by ~50% compared to buying locally (hypothetically if my
grocery store carried them), while Walmart had the prices matching what you'd
see in stores.

Prime used to be a deal, but now it seems that base prices on anything Prime
eligible have had the price jacked up to cover Prime shipping, and are usually
available from a "non-prime" seller for $5-10 cheaper.

If you're ordering a Prime eligible item and don't have a membership, it's
always a crappy price because the fast shipping fee has been built into it,
but you get slow shipping instead. And if you _do_ have a membership, what's
that $100/year going toward? Apparently not the shipping, since Prime items
are consistently priced higher. I'd speculate it's funding their other
ventures like Music and TV instead.

Walmart does free shipping on most orders over $35 (in some cases 2-day), no
price inflation, no membership required. And as far as I know, they don't have
Amazon's counterfeiting problems. I'll be checking on them in the future
before I buy anything else on Amazon.

~~~
wlesieutre
Here's an example. This is the actual item that spurred me to look at other
stores: "Better Than Bouillon" vegetable broth base. For some reason my
grocery store carries their chicken and beef bases, but not vegetable.

Wal-Mart - $4.64, free 2-day shipping on orders $35 and up
[https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Than-Bouillon-Premium-
Seas...](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Than-Bouillon-Premium-Seasoned-
Vegetable-Base-8-oz/30984060)

Amazon - $15.99, prime eligible [https://www.amazon.com/BETTER-BOUILLON-
PREMIUM-SEASONED-VEGE...](https://www.amazon.com/BETTER-BOUILLON-PREMIUM-
SEASONED-VEGETABLE/dp/B072VYG6YC/) (only listing I can find for the exact
product)

Amazon $7.80, add-on item w/ free shipping on $35+
[https://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillion-Vegetable-
Base/...](https://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillion-Vegetable-
Base/dp/B00016LA9S/) (similar product from same brand)

I'm not sure what "Superior Touch" is compared to "Premium" but it costs 68%
more and I've been using the cheaper one for years. After first looking for it
on Amazon, I bought it from Wal-Mart instead.

Related story on another obscure food product - I almost got screwed by
subscribe and save because I'd subscribed on a cheap product (around $7,
discounted maybe $1), and the price had suddenly tripled when it came time for
the next subscription order to go out. As far as I can tell there's no
protection for this. You'd think it could check "Hey, you subscribed to this
at $7, maybe you don't want to pay $21 for the same thing," but no.

[EDIT - checked order history, the original S&S order was at $6.90. I
unfortunately don't have a definite record for the one I cancelled. It's
currently available at $10.20 for a 1-pack or $8.70 for a 2-pack, because that
makes sense.]

I happened to sign in and notice before it shipped out, so I canceled. And
(unsurprisingly) it was still sold near the original price on the listings
from every other seller. They'd just offered a minor discount to get people
into a subscription and then screw them with a price increase.

I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-
Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you
absolutely can't avoid it?"

~~~
Chaebixi
> I don't think the question should be "Why would you buy from Wal-
> Mart/Target/etc?" It should be "Why would you buy from Amazon unless you
> absolutely can't avoid it?"

This is exactly where I'm at. Amazon just isn't competitive on many axes
anymore:

1\. Price: Amazon just doesn't seem to be price competitive with local stores
anymore, and like you observed, sometimes the prices are jacked up
unreasonably.

2\. Selection: It's way easier to find specific items at specialist
stores/websites. Amazon's search for long-tail items sucks.

3\. Delivery: Amazon delivery is vastly inferior to USPS, etc. where I live.
Why do I want to pay more to get an item delivered in to days, when I could
pay less and get it now with a 30 min trip to the right shop?

~~~
wlesieutre
Amazon deliveries here get shipped to the local post office and then use USPS
for the last mile, so I haven't had problems with that. But on the rest,
absolutely.

Search is terrible, items are miscategorized all the time, there are multiple
listings for the same thing when they should all be grouped as multiple
sellers of one product, the product info is missing or wrong, prices are
sometimes totally out of whack (like my comment above where a 2-pack is
cheaper than a 1-pack), you have no idea if you'll get the item you ordered or
a counterfeit version, Amazon has no idea if they sent you the item you
ordered or a counterfeit version, and the description/photos/actual item
sometimes don't match. Pretty much anything that can be wrong with a product
page frequently is.

I should cancel my Amazon Prime subscription. It's a huge selection of stuff
available in one place, but that's about the only thing they have going for
them.

------
sourthyme
I think we need a good competitor in this space, and can't think of another
company that could help to leverage retailers enough. To me this is like
google vs apple. Only good can come out of this for the consumer.

------
ChuckMcM
If they are fighting how will they become Googlezon ? :-)

I don't think Google saves itself by being a federated shopping platform (aka
the Uber for Amazon). It would do much better by continuing to attack Amazon's
AWS offerings with its own, after all if Google can keep Amazon from making a
profit on their infrastructure it goes back to be a cost/liability at Amazon
rather than an Asset. That cuts into profits eventually.

~~~
ISL
In between profit and liability is break-even. For a company with a mantra of
"your margin is our opportunity", break-even is an acceptable outcome.

As long as companies can make money on float, sheer volume can be its own
profit center.

------
AndrewOMartin
When the axe came into the Forest, the trees said "The handle is one of us".

~~~
mxuribe
This one is hilarious!!

------
scrooched_moose
Until they solve the selection issue I just don't care what else they can
offer.

Amazon has won in my book by being a one stop shop for literally everything. I
almost never price compare anymore because it's just so damn convenient being
able to go on there, search, and have it in 2 or fewer days.

I just went through my last two months of Amazon purchases and searched for
them on Target:

    
    
      No results: 16 items
      Results, but inferior products I wouldn't have purchased: 3
      Equivalent item but far more expensive (double or more): 3
      Identical item or equivalent I still would have purchased: 11
    

In the end, they could have "replaced" Amazon 33% of the time for me. That's
low enough I'm never going to bother.

Edit: I saw Wal-Mart in the article so I did the same items with them. They
were only missing 4 items for an 88% success rate and a few looked higher
quality than I got. Not sure if they're any less "evil" (whatever that means
here) but they fared much better than I expected.

~~~
beagle3
Did you also compare prices? In the last couple of weeks I've heard from many
people that Walmart is significantly cheaper on everyday things.

~~~
toomuchtodo
And Walmart will even bring your order out to your car for you for pick up.
Definitely worth it for the price savings compared to Amazon.

------
vondur
Target has big problems with their online ordering. I've ordered items from
them, had the order lost and no contact from the company at all. If you go to
a local store where you can also have items delivered, they have no order
info, and can't help you. There is a reason why Amazon is popular.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
My counter anecdote: I had a fantastic online ordering experience at Target
about a week or two ago. I needed something during the work day, so I placed
an order with the nearest store to my office over the Internet and they had my
order ready for in-store pickup in under a half hour. Stopped by, walked in,
picked it up, and left. Still had time to go get lunch.

------
gizmodo59
I can now talk to an "intelligent" AI when my shipment doesn't arrive on time
or if I have to complain about a product I bought. May be a post in Google
Forums.

------
forgotAgain
What a difference a word can make:

This post heading:

 _Google is building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the latest to
join_

and the source article:

 _Google is essentially building an anti-Amazon alliance, and Target is the
latest to join_

The one word changes the article from providing an interpretation of a set of
facts to a declaration of a proven fact. Since Recode has some gravitas the
difference is even greater than if it was a blog mill churning out click bait.

------
tyingq
Voice shopping doesn't work well if it offers choices of vendors for a single
product. The voice interface is a bit awkward for that.

Google will end up being a kingmaker in this space. I suppose they could round
robin suppliers, but to do this well requires tight integration, which also
pushes you to fewer suppliers.

------
dfps
Won't competition be both good for Amazon and for consumers? Right now, Amazon
is a monopoly (because of Prime and good selection [although still lots of
room there for improvement], and I also use Amazon Prime a lot, but a second
option would probably improve things, I think.

------
heurist
I know a guy who knows some Google VPs who say Google is afraid people will go
directly to Amazon for all their shopping searches rather than starting with
Google, hence ad spend is threatened. Big deal for Google.

------
faragon
Good for Google. What about a Prime-like service including videos, movies, and
music for 20-30 USD per year?

~~~
daveFNbuck
YouTube Red is 120 USD per year for just videos and music (no movies), so what
you're asking for is extremely unlikely.

~~~
Raidion
I mean, they do have movies, just really not a great selection. $30 for a year
seems pretty cheap though, I agree.

