'Buy button' to be added to Google search results | Hacker News Reader

'Buy button' to be added to Google search results

bbc.co.uk

36 pointsmichaelx38641 comments

1. Control the vast majority of web-search share ensuring the vast majority of users go through your site before buying anything.

2. Introduce a buy button for the cooperating retailers, which is obviously displayed at the very top of search results.

3. Other retailers have to either pay Google or be pushed down in search results below the retailers who have a buy button.

This is why Google Search desperately needs some real competition.

Oh, and the next step? Buy button right in your browser (Chrome). Buy stuff just by typing into OmniBar(TM)!

Actually, there is no lack of competition. Google is in big trouble and it knows.

Many e-commerce companies are going mobile-first. Here in India, some are abandoning the web altogether. If native mobile apps dominate e-commerce, Google's biggest revenue stream could face its biggest challenge in many years.

There are a lot of people who won't buy the product unless they can compare prices in different stores. Maybe the Indians are different, I don't know. But it is fairly well-known that if your store is low in search results, the sales suffer substantially. Mobile only has no discovery, the only way you get new customers is by word of mouth, or some really strong advertising in order to convince people to install your app.

Having near total control of the OS that totally dominates the market in poorer countries is kinda a nice position to be in though.

I don't understand why that's a problem for google. How do you find and install apps? Oh right - through google play!

- No e-commerce sites charge money on any app stores for users to download their apps since they want the largest audience possible shopping them.

- Google Play only takes a cut of in-app purchases of digital goods and not physical things. Most e-commerce companies would not survive if Google took a 30% cut of everything sold since margins in many industries are in single digits (electronics/computer parts for example are generally less than 5%).

Correct, but I think Kenji's point is that you are buying a Google phone (Android) to have the privilege to download apps from Google Play.

Android market share is at 79%. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougolenick/2015/05/27/apple-ios...

1. There is little money in google play.

2. If the retailers are big enough, they can easily strike deals with carriers/ phone manufacturers. Or, like Amazon tried, create their own market place.

Commerce has nothing to do with it. Google has no search competition.

Yeah, but what pays for search? Remember the early days of Google, they got the search tech right, and returned the best results, but there was concern how they would make money. They lucked in AdWords and took over the online advertising industry. Commerce is one significant (if not the main) source of the ad dollars.

They have buy competition though. I have read (and it seems plausible to me) that most people go directly to Amazon.com when they know what they want to buy already, and they only search Google for things to buy when they don't know.

I myself limit my online buys to Amazon because it's more convenient than setting up a new account for each individual vendor. I don't even care if I pay more at Amazon. It's safer and more convenient.

...and one of the reason people search Google is because searching Amazon is weirdly and totally broken.

I know Amazon is chock full of people who know what they're doing so it's always surprising that the search is so bad.

what? I've never ever ever had an issue with amazon search, can you explain what you mean?

Search for [Pure One Mini] (pure is the manufacturer, one mini is the product name, of a DABS portable radio.) you get a bunch of results that just aren't relevant. You get accessories for this device, you get accessories for other devices from this manufacturer, you get other devices from this manufacturer, you get devices and accessories from other manufacturers. You have to use the side bar to restrict the products to those from Pure. But you still get all the Pure product line, and there's no way to further restrict the selection.

Back when people were still selling the Sansa Fuze: Search for eg [sansa fuze 8GB] then sort by price. You get dozens of pages of cases, then leads, then chargers for the sansa fuze. And Amazon's next page only allows you to advance by single pages, you can't jump forward by 5 pages at a time.

Search for [microwave oven], chose a department, and search by price, and you'll get a billion things that can be used with a microwave oven (timers, cookware, books) and then actual microwave ovens. You have to do further refinement using the side bar.

Sansa Fuze

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3D...

The top 3 results, in order,

- 4 GB sansa Fuze player

- sansa Fuze player clip

- 8 GB sansa Fuze player

Here's a search that finds the portable radio using the search terms "pure one mini portable radio"

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap...

and a search for "microwave" http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D...

All 3 searches have the relevant items at the top.

I'm not saying Amazon search is perfect, but you know, sometimes I have to modify my search in order to find what I want on google too.

Huh, what? Amazon search works great.

Headline contradicts the story, which says the button will be added to the "shopping ads that appear alongside search results", not the search results themselves. Big difference.

(I work for Google)

A large number of people can't tell ads from search result, so the difference isn't that big in in practice.

I am really interested in how this is going to work. Unless the buy button sends people directly to a reseller Google is going to drown in customer support. Trying to make customer understand that despite you buying this one Google, you didn't buy it from Google is going to be VERY tricky. Likewise handling returns could be a major pain.

From the business side I just hope that payments are going to be more business friendly than PayPal.

A large number of people can't tell ads from search result, so the difference isn't that big in in practice.

In some cases this can be caused by the background colors chosen for ads being perfectly eliminated by cheap laptop LCDs at slight vertical angles. The pale yellow or blue completely disappears to white. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that A/B testing of colors stumbled upon the perfect color to disappear into a cheap LCD screen ;-).

Probably part of AdWords Shopping campaigns. The products are already uploaded to Google, why not add another field for direct cart link? Google sends the click there and gets a cut based on the existing AdWords tracking.

Seem quite easy to me and all the merchants would be on board.

So, is it kind of like this, where Google takes some of the profit and doesn't worry about whether the goods are pirated or not, because hey, profit!

http://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/37i2f4/someone_pirat...

Or... are you still "good" Google? Is this guy getting any help from Google yet?

The buy button goes to the retailers checkout and not to Google saving one click.

How is this any different that the link to the product and you than hit purchase. I fail to see the "Evil" in this.

Read the story.

I did read the story. The purchase is the stores purchase minus the click to the checkout box.

I'm talking about the story I linked, where someone is selling a pirated copy of an author's book on Google Play. Google is happily collecting a portion of the proceeds on the pirated book, while refusing to remove the pirated book from the marketplace. So.. not cool.

The philosophy is similar to Amazon 1-Click, reduce friction to buy however the impact to retailers may not be all positive. Retailers will loose control on up-sell and cross-sell, instead the control will go to the Search platform.

1-Click doesn't hurt sellers! It works for the Marketplace too. It just means you don't need to go through the full wizard thing.

I think "Buy button" will not be forced to the retailers instead it will be an opt-in.

However think of these scenarios from the retailer's point of view:

1. Where Google button shows up on all links except my link, would it come under pressure and cave in; since all my competitors are selling by "Buy button".

2. Google may give priority to links who provide Buy button "integration". Pending anti-trust looming, this could put retailers under pressure as well.

3. Given an option to the end users to buy from Google vs. buy from another website, the end users could start seeing Google as a good brother.

Even though it could be an opt-in, it does not look like an opt-in when it comes to monopolies.

It's brilliant, really. Impossible to compete with. Now customers have bought from your competitor without having to leave the results page. They won't even click on your site now.

I struggle to think of something where I would buy it from the search result alone. Even if it is the thing I want, I'm going to price shop or at least click through for details. Then again, I am not the internet, so maybe some people will be really happy with this. I doubt I'll ever use it.

You might believe that if the worlds largest, most sophisticated searcher of the Internet has scoured all vendors and displayed the exact item you want, and they have a buy button on the best price, that it is the best price.

You'd probably be wrong, but most people are wrong about something every day. There will be clicks. Revenue will be steered.

> but most people are wrong about something every day

Speak for yourself! I am always right. :)

> There will be clicks. Revenue will be steered

All that really matters. As long as it doesn't negatively impact search, i expect i'll be able to ignore it and others will be able to use it and life will be swell.

wow. The European Commission is going to love this (context http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/15/google-fac...)

This as an extension to AdWords doesn't seem like a horrible idea. For some retailers, allowing Google to complete an order might be a net improvement over their own store/experience. For the small to medium size etailers, Google most likely can offer superior experience and an "order is an order" assuming the net profit is reasonable.

Advertisers will also opt-in to using it as a way of differentiating their Ad from competitors.

Google and Advertisers have figured out that constant small changes to search Ads prevent "PPC Blindness" and every new extension gives a temporary incremental lift in regular ad clicks.

Exactly, just the the click-to-call and other ad extensions. If the CAC goes down small to mid-size retailers won't care.

Conversion is not based simply on an ad and a buy button. Consumers like to read reviews, price shop, check out images, specs, have questions answered, etc. How is a 3 line ad supposed to compress all that? By adding a buy button?!!

This will most likely go the way of google wallet

I hope the EU has something to say about this, because it sounds outrageous.

I'm just curious why Google is implementing this now, given that the basis of the EU antitrust case was due to its relationship with online retailers.

The headline does sound outrageous but it doesn't describe what's actually going to be happening. But, worry not, The EU will have something to say regardless.

Anti-trust suits on both sides of the Atlantic in three, two, one...

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