CHINA TOPIX

12/22/2024 05:15:41 pm

Make CT Your Homepage

Google and Barnes & Noble Team Up Against Amazon

A Barnes & Noble bookstore

(Photo : Reuters) A Barnes & Noble bookstore

Google and Barnes & Noble have teamed up to go against e-commerce giant, Amazon.

Barnes & Noble has just joined Google's roster of retailers, who are taking part of the company's same-day delivery service.

Barnes & Noble CEO Michael Husbey stated that partnering with Google will expose the chain to new customers. 

Like Us on Facebook

"It also helps to link the local stores to a customer base when the order is received and it indicates what store it came from," he added.

Other retailers who have teamed up with Google include Target, Costco, Walgreens, and Toys R Us.

Amazon has long been a recognized nemesis of traditional bookstores.

A reboot of Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader, set to be released on August 20, will be competing with the more well-known Kindle Fire, a creation by Amazon. 

Google also deems Amazon as a threat ever since the tech company discovered that customers prefer to search for products on Amazon over Google. The said trend will undermine Google's long-term plan of having a paid-search business model.

This leering threat has prompted Google  to launch Google Shopping Express last year. The shopping portal offers a same-day delivery service, which is an evident strategy implemented to compete with Amazon.

The same-day delivery cost for Amazon is $5.99 per shipment for members, $9.98 for one item, and $0.99 for each additional product for non-members.

Members of Google Shopping Express do not get charged for delivery for the first six months. Non-members pay $4.99 per delivery.

Unlike Amazon, Google does not have warehouses and instead relies on the stock available in its partner retailers' stores.  

With the same-day delivery service, a customer orders from Google's shopping portal. Then, the delivery teams head off to the stores to acquire the items. The team subsequently delivers the products to the customer's doorstep within a few hours.

Currently, the said service is only available in Manhattan, West Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Real Time Analytics