Google is starting to launch same day shipping services in select cities in order to compete with Amazon's shipping services. The service costs $99 per year or $10 per month, or even something like $4.99 per item or order (I can't recall which one). Obviously, Amazon has the infrastructure to reign supreme in deliveries, but Google thinks it can muscle into the business. What are your thoughts? I don't see this affecting Google's stock too much in the short-term.
In my opinion, Google is far better at carving out new niches that trying to muscle into industries that already have strong leaders. Look at what happened to Google Plus. Still, a bit more competition is not going to hurt Amazon. If anything we should see them try to provide better services. The consumers win. And since most of Google's revenue comes from it's search engine and ads anyway, I also don't see this having much of an effect.
I don't see this having an effect on either company. Amazon is already running a pretty tight ship and I've always been pleased with their delivery and service in general. I don't see this being a game changer for Google, but it is a nice idea.
I think they are different markets and forgive me for my ignorance, but was is Google selling really?
I generally think that Amazon is in the market to grow and is essentially working off thinner margins just to do that. That makes it particularly difficult for most others to compete with them as their rarely is any sort of financial incentive, not to mention the barrier to entry. Right now, book stores have been devastated by Amazon and same with companies like Circuit City, Best Buy, and some even say Walmart is feeling the pinch. Amazon truly can be quite the unstoppable beast.
Well, Google Plus is doing better than most people believe that it is. I think the problem that most people have is that they don't even realize all of the things that they could do with Google Plus and they are missing out. As far as their delivery service, they have already done this in certain markets and for the most part, I don't think it's going to be an overwhelming thing for either company. I don't know of too many people that have to have their ordered products within hours and if they do, they'll go locally to do it. For both markets, the price of the item would have to be unbelievable for people to truly need it before a two day delivery, in my opinion.
It does bring some more buzz to Google, not that there's a person on the planet (slight hyperbole) that hasn't heard about Google. Google did just announced the Nexus Player to compete with things like Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. They announced the next Android operating system, along with the Nexus 6 phone (major hype around the device, basically a buffed up Moto X 2nd Gen) and Nexus 9 tablet. It's a lot of good news for the company.
http://www.businessinsider.com/95-for-google-shopping-express-is-worth-it-2014-10 Actually, I should have gone into more detail about Google Express. It differentiates itself from Amazon's delivery services and similar options because it delivers items directly from local businesses (larger retailers, of course). $99 per month gets you free same day delivery on orders over $15. You could order groceries from a local Vons or Safeway and then get goods from other retailers in the same order. It's a very aggressive move that is getting some rave reviews.
With all the stuff that Google has done over the years its easy to say they can do it. I mean with something like the Google smartwatch and other services like Adwords and Adsense I would see Google on top. I think if Google does their work correctly then they possibly could beat out Amazon.
Amazon has dealt with this sort of market a lot longer than Google. I think Google shouldn't try to butt into this sort of thing.