I won't defend customer service, but I will point out that what Google is doing is 'federated' shopping, and what Amazon does is centralized fulfillment.
Google Shopping Express is basically about using software algorithms to index and manage inventory and a fleet of vehicles across a large number of heterogeneous local brick-and-mortar suppliers. In other words, it brings Walmart/Amazons scale logistics to the local shop.
Fulfillment in Google Shopping Express means supporting your local community, your local suppliers, rather than a big warehouse sitting somewhere.
I view this is fundamentally more "webby"/decentralized and better for the economy than a winner-takes-all-megastore. Create a platform for locals to have their inventory discoverable to nearby shoppers, and an efficient way to offer same-day delivery.
It may not be ultimately as efficient as Amazon's model, but Google Shopping Express seems to be to be putting Amazon's logistics up against the entire local market of your area. This makes Amazon an enemy of your local shops, and Google a naturally aligned ally, that brings customers, and helps with delivery.
Now, the customer service issue will have to be solved. But let's stop with the "ad company" canard, Shopping Express is a technology innovation, not about ads.
> I won't defend customer service, but I will point out that what Google is doing is 'federated' shopping, and what Amazon does is centralized fulfillment.
That's not been true of Amazon for many years. Or, rather, it's not been true that that is the only thing Amazon does.
Amazon federates merchants worldwide, and fulfilment can be via Amazon end to end for merchants that opts for Fulfilment by Amazon. Amazon has stakes in some delivery companies, and in the UK at least they are shortening their delivery paths via Amazon Logistics [1], which provides them with a "halfway house" in the form of their own local delivery depots. But merchants can also opt to do fulfilment themselves.
They are now rolling out "same day pickup": Order by 11.45; have the order ready to be picked up in one of hundreds of locations by 4pm, or order by 7.45pm and be able to pickup from 6.30am the following day [2].
Couple that with Amazon Lockers, and Collect+ (UK network that provides delivery to your local corner shop etc., and Amazon supports delivery to them), and it's clear that Google will be increasingly facing same day options from Amazon backed by an inventory that will be extremely hard to beat.
> Google Shopping Express seems to be to be putting Amazon's logistics up against the entire local market of your area.
Over the last year, most of what I purchased via Amazon isn't even available in my local shops.
I don't think that's true for physical businesses. Technology actually allows businesses to be more monolithic and centralized because it reduces the pain of managing lots of moving parts. Making purchasing and delivery decentralized may have its own benefits, but I hardly think it is an evolutionary conclusion in itself.
Decentralisation, yes, but not all the way to store fronts. Shops represents a massive about of dispersal of inventory to areas which are not where the customer wants to be, and where rental costs are vastly higher. It makes sense for products customers want to see before buying, or _likes_ to browse for and/or wants right away
The last part being important - before HMV in the UK went into administration, the last few years whenever we went browsing there we almost never bought anything because smartphones meant we were made acutely aware that Amazon was usually cheaper, and we could have it next day anyway; so the only purchases we made was when we decided we wanted to watch something the same evening (and these days even if you want to own the physical DVD it's better to stream: Sky offers a service where you can buy a DVD, get it mailed to you, but at the same time can start streaming the movie immediately; more and more business models are incompatible with high street storefronts).
And Amazon is decentralising: In the UK for example, they've started rolling out their own delivery depots so that increasingly only "last mile" (or more like 5-10 mile) delivery is done by external delivery companies. Expect the depots to start holding some level of inventory of the products they ship the highest volumes of, and for delivery times to keep shrinking (in the UK they're now rolling out same day pickup from a number of locations)
Google Shopping Express is basically about using software algorithms to index and manage inventory and a fleet of vehicles across a large number of heterogeneous local brick-and-mortar suppliers. In other words, it brings Walmart/Amazons scale logistics to the local shop.
Fulfillment in Google Shopping Express means supporting your local community, your local suppliers, rather than a big warehouse sitting somewhere.
I view this is fundamentally more "webby"/decentralized and better for the economy than a winner-takes-all-megastore. Create a platform for locals to have their inventory discoverable to nearby shoppers, and an efficient way to offer same-day delivery.
It may not be ultimately as efficient as Amazon's model, but Google Shopping Express seems to be to be putting Amazon's logistics up against the entire local market of your area. This makes Amazon an enemy of your local shops, and Google a naturally aligned ally, that brings customers, and helps with delivery.
Now, the customer service issue will have to be solved. But let's stop with the "ad company" canard, Shopping Express is a technology innovation, not about ads.