Google’s Latest Move to Vie With Amazon: Shopping Actions

Amazon’s impressive advertising growth has established the company’s position as the number three player in the digital advertising world, only behind Google and Facebook. According to estimates from eMarketer, U.S. advertisers will spend over $4.6 billion using Amazon this year, a 144.5% increase over 2017. To help address Amazon’s thriving advertising business and constant optimizations across online product search, Google has created a new program that allows brands and retailers to showcase their products in a variety of Google-affiliated mediums — including Google search, Google Express, and Google Assistant, and on desktop, mobile, and the Google Home voice activated device.

With Google Shopping Actions, Google itself handles each transaction instead of referring the user to another website or property where the transaction would take place. The program, which is different than Google Shopping’s model of cost-per-click advertising, charges a commission for each individual transaction that takes place. Buyers can save their payment information and activate one-click ordering. Although traffic is not sent directly to a brand or retailer’s own website, Google offers a branded store experience with Google Express.

The program was developed as a response to Google’s internal data showing a need for “immediate assistance,” and was therefore created with the intention in mind of allowing consumers to take shopping action wherever they were throughout the day, at their own convenience. Shoppers can add products from multiple retailers to their “universal cart” and purchase them all within a single transaction, which is immensely similar to the 3P Amazon marketplace. For brands and retailers that are already selling on Amazon, Google Shopping Actions may be something that stays on the backburner. However, this could be a significant indicator for them to take a hard look at their Amazon storefronts and optimize various facets of their businesses accordingly, as Google undoubtedly gains more skin in the game with this move.