Public Launch Of Google Shopping Express A Challenge To
Amazon, EBay
Taking a detour from search and software, Google today
publicly launched a service that delivers within hours online purchases from
local retailers to Bay Area residents.
The public debut of Google Shopping Express – one of the
largest same-day delivery services available, rivaled perhaps only by eBay –
underscores the growing importance of the local commerce market, and the
potential for advertising revenue and to collect even more data on consumers by
being the link that connects retailers to customers.
Shopping Express started last year as an experiment on
Google’s Mountain View campus, and little by little, over the last six months,
the company added members of the public to test the service. Consumers had to
apply and some waited weeks for approval. (Google wouldn’t say how many people
it let use the service during testing, but likely there were several thousand.)
Now, anyone living and working in San Francisco, the
Peninsula and parts of the South Bay will be able to use the same-day delivery
service. And reviews from many customers have so far been favorable, with
shoppers saying they like the speedy front-door delivery. But some have
commented on the lack of product variety offered on the site.
Shopping Express is a Web and mobile site — which went
live online at 7 a.m. — where customers can shop from more than 15 Bay Area
retailers including Walgreens, Nob Hill Foods, Staples, Blue Bottle Coffee,
Target and Palo Alto Sport Shop and Toy World, and Google will deliver the
purchases that day within a three or five-hour window. The cost is $5 for each
store pickup, although through the end of the year Google is offering six
months of unlimited, free deliveries.
Google also launched today a Shopping Express app – a
necessary addition with the rise of mobile commerce – and announced that Whole
Foods and REI had also joined the delivery service, adding more high-profile
national retailers to the site. The apps went live this morning on the Google
Play Store and the Apple App Store.
Today’s public debut of Shopping Express signals that
Googlers, led by Product Management Director Tom Fallows, believe they’ve
solved a retail puzzle that has spelled the death of dot-com companies
including Webvan and Kozmo, and stumped even giants like Amazon.
“We learned a lot from our pilot, and found a way to
apply Google’s strengths in technology to things like finding the most
efficient delivery route,” Fallows told this newspaper. “That allows us to give
customers a really amazing same-day delivery experience from their favorite
stores at an everyday affordable price.”
He added that “we are really fired up” and “this has been
a long time coming.”
(We reported on the expansion plans for Shopping Express
last month.)
It wasn’t smooth sailing for Google. Some local retailers
who were early partners in the delivery trial said they were a bit surprised to
see Googlers stumble through the logistics.
“When it launched, they clearly hadn’t thought everything
through,” said James Freeman, chief executive officer, founder and president of
Blue Bottle Coffee.
Amazon will likely be paying close attention to Google,
especially as the Seattle-based company prepares to bring its local grocery
delivery service, AmazonFresh, to the San Francisco Bay Area this year. Amazon
offers same-day delivery in about 11 cities – none in the Bay Area — although
customers must order by 7 a.m., which “defeats the whole purpose,” Matt Nemer,
a retail analyst with Wells Fargo, told me in an interview in August.
And Shopping Express is eBay’s first large-scale
competitor in the Bay Area. San Jose-based eBay last year launched eBay Now, a
service that delivers online purchases from local retailers – many of the same
merchants that Google offers – in an hour. eBay Now is available everywhere
Shopping Express is, and the company has also added service in New York, Dallas
and Chicago, and expanded its web and mobile applications.
There are some differences between the two services. eBay
Now drivers are more like personal shoppers, while customers can’t (yet) call
or text Google drivers to discuss purchases or get updates on their
whereabouts. eBay Now drivers are a bit more nimble and will also deliver just
about anywhere – drivers have gone to bars, parks, outdoor cafes and back
alleys in San Francisco Chinatown – and can make last-minute changes to
delivery destinations if the customer asks.
Google’s delivery is less intimate but provides the
framework for a service that could easily scale to a national operation, some
experts say. That’s good news for many brick-and-mortar merchants, who say
same-day delivery will help them serve more customers who otherwise would shop
from Amazon or other online sites. Google has not been charging merchants to be
part of Shopping Express — but most experts expect costs will increase for both
retailers and users.
The company is staying silent on where it might expand
Shopping Express next, although Fallows said on Tuesday he wants to add more
zip codes, but the company is moving ahead cautiously.
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