As two of the biggest brands in the world, Google and Amazon have long competed with one another – especially in the lucrative product discovery arena.
It might be assumed that Google, with its vast reach and ever-improving capabilities is still the undisputed kin, but this is no longer the case. Amazon has now become the go-to site for shoppers browsing for their latest purchase. Below, we’ll look at why this is so and see just how much of a lead Amazon now has.
Cultivated Associations
While Google has always pushed itself as the place to find whatever you want online, it has spread itself somewhat thin in recent years. Because Google has so much capital and so many resources, the search engine has pushed into other areas including smartphones and VR.
At the same time, Amazon has continued to position itself as the place for shoppers to get the products they want. This may sound simple, but it’s one of the main reasons Amazon is now the place more than 50-percent of online shoppers start the product discovery process.
Now, when people think about where to get that book they want or the cat bed they need, more than half of online shoppers go directly to Amazon. Many people no longer see the need to trawl through search results on Google – they already know they can get what they need by turning to the world’s third largest retailer.
Amazon has Become a Product Search Engine
Google, as a search engine, has a great many balls to keep in the air. With the lion’s share of search traffic and billions of search queries to deal with each week, it has to deliver a wealth of information and results related to almost any query. Amazon is different.
Amazon has a defined purpose and goal – to sell people the products they need, no matter what those products might be. As such, Amazon has become a fully-functional product search engine.
As a platform, Amazon only has to fulfil this task and users will return time and time again. This is because the modern internet user prizes speed and convenience over everything else, and this is exactly what Amazon provides. Amazon shoppers know that they have an all-in-one shopping solution at their disposal and there is no incentive to go elsewhere – and that includes Google.
The Future is Amazon’s
Unless Google inexplicably decides to reformulate its approach to product discovery, Amazon will retain and strengthen its ascendant position in the coming years.
The latest figures showing Amazon’s dominance form part of a three-year trend, with the future firmly belonging to them and no one else.
As Amazon continues to boost its offerings and innovates in the way it delivers products to customers, it will only become more efficient at what it does and determined to hold onto its product discovery lead.
