Google May Compete With Amazon With Its Own ‘Buy Now’ Button

The latest development in the ongoing competition between Amazon and Google is the news that Google may be developing its own unique e-commerce solution with a “buy now” button that could be embedded directly into the search engine results pages. Although Google has not confirmed whether or not it is moving forward with these plans, the industry is taking note and discussing the potential effect on digital marketing and businesses.

The Wall Street Journal reported this information, explaining that merchants would continue to handle all of the logistics of selling and shipping, but the buy button would aim to keep users in the Google Shopping environment as opposed to leading them directly to merchants’ sites to buy a product. Another important aspect of this possibility is the idea that Google would “allow merchants to promote two-day shipping for products purchased through its shopping service,” according to an unnamed person who has been briefed on the plan.”

“Google has approached retailers about creating a ‘buy’ button for its online shopping site that would be similar to Amazon’s popular ‘one-click ordering’ feature, according to people familiar with the discussions,” the Wall Street Journal article reported.

With Google facing increasing competition from sites such as Amazon and Pinterest, it’s not surprising that the company is looking into new ways to build Google Shopping into a more comprehensive e-commerce experience, taking it beyond simply being a product search referral engine.

Industry insiders are discussing what this would mean for marketers and businesses. If Google is focusing on competing with Amazon in this regard, will the search engine down rank Amazon product pages in the SERPs? And will third-party retailers that partner with Google get a boost in the SERPs? There’s no way to know for certain at this point, but we’ll be watching carefully as more information becomes available in the coming period.

The Wall Street Journal explains that data from research firm Forrester shows that in the last quarter, 39% of U.S. shoppers began their product searches on Amazon, while only 11% began their searches through a traditional search engine such as Google. There is the potential for Google to gain a larger share of that audience if the company starts to provide the ability to buy products directly from the SERPs, making the rumors of a “buy now” button seem like a logical move for Google.

However, Google hasn’t even confirmed that this is in the works, so we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out. The Wall Street Journal wrote that reception of Google’s plans has been “cool”, due to the fact that retailers are weary of price wars and are concerned about the possibility of losing branding control if Google confines the shopping experience entirely to its own site. It will be interesting to see whether or not Google comes out with a statement about these plans soon.