Saturday, February 07, 2015

Google and Amazon Competing now?

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/10/google_amazon_competition_how_amazon_prime_delivery_hurts_google_s_ad_business.html


Taking a different twist on how google's advertising dependent business is exposed, recent comments from Chairman Eric Schmidt suggest it is actually Amazon that is their biggest competitior as the companies are both fundamentally search engines to buy products and services ultimately. While they are competing head to head on daily delivery of goods today, the reality is that 1/3rd of consumers are biased to simply start their search of a new purchase on Amazon, higher than Google. For google and its declining click-through prices, this represents a competitive threat if they can continue to grow both their product offerings, and expand the size of the pie with which consumers go to one site versus another for the aim of buying on the internet.

This approach effectively sees Google as the dominant player - without any real competition from others like Yahoo and Bing - but rather sees a challenge to the business model overall, with delcining ad revenues, should consumers be increasingly to skip the google search process altogether when getting ready to acquire products (via Amazon or a comparable site).

In some respects, With Google largely dependent on advertising revenues tied to selling products and services is a further problem for the information company; is there not a better complement to their business model to leverage improve the diversity of their business as well?



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