Amazon Is Google’s Problem vs. the $2.7B E.U. Fine

Market watchers seem to think the E.U.’s mandate that Google change its algorithm to stop favoring its Google Shopping results over those of rival e-commerce marketers, as well as last month’s $2.7 billion fine, will be a huge slap in the face to the search giant. What they may not realize is Amazon long ago beat the E.U. to the assault. In terms of e-commerce search results, Google seems to be arranging deck chairs — albeit a lot of them — in the losing fight to the titanic e-commerce site. In the latest feng shui, Google is asking merchants to create content about their products that will lead to more relevant, and varied for SEO purposes, results on search results pages for shoppers. This July 14 news from Business Insider shows a long lag time from Google, which Target Marketing reported in 2011 already knew about its duplicate results problem. And entering into the fray to whittle away at e-commerce market share is TV home shopping network colossus QVC. On July 6, QVC and HSN announced a merger aimed at reaching Web- and mobile-only e-commerce shoppers. The catch is, most of those shoppers use Amazon. Business Insider reports: In 2016, 55 percent of U.S. consumers began their product search on Amazon, up from 44 percent in 2015, according to a survey by BloomReach. At the same time, only 28 percent of U.S. consumers said they start the process on search engines like Google, down from 34 percent in 2015. Amazon also leads in mobile shopping searches, with 50 percent of U.S. consumers starting on its app or site, while search engines garner only 34 percent. These stats show major movement away from Google for e-commerce shopping needs — and where consumers go, so go marketers. Still, here’s what the June 27 article from the New York Times says: Google suffered a major blow on Tuesday after European antitrust officials fined the search giant a record $2.7 billion for unfairly favoring some of its own services over those of rivals. Even without considering the Amazon angle on Google’s “major blow,” one market watcher says it’s not even a wallet pinch. https://twitter.com/SamUBloomberg/status/879662293612670976 What do you think, marketers? Please respond in the comments section below.

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Amazon Is Google’s Problem vs. the $2.7B E.U. Fine

Heather Fletcher

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Heather Fletcher