Following through on its announcement in May, Google has released its new shopping service aimed at consumers. PMG’s EVP Price Glomski shared his thoughts with TotalRetail on how the new platform can serve retailers looking for alternatives to Amazon, and whether the new service’s lack of distribution will hamstring it in the longterm against the online retail behemoth.
According to Glomski, “Google’s ultimate objective to provide a one-stop-shop for the customer purchase journey, starting at product discovery to purchase event, sets it ahead of competition outside of Amazon due to its breadth of user activity.”
“For Google, providing seamless means of delivery and guaranteeing client satisfaction are no easy task, but the work is worth it. Google’s biggest challenge will come down to its lack of a mass distribution center, which makes Amazon the beast of a company it is today.
There are many issues in the current state of store-based inventory signals available to Google, which is reliant on its retail clients to provide, that oftentimes leads to dissatisfied clients. Amazon, on the other hand, set up its business model to be fully self-reliant by having partners ultimately utilize their distribution services to participate in and benefit from the platform itself. It will be very interesting to see how the two varying strategies evolve over time.”