The New Amazon Mobile Search And Impact on Google Ecom Searches

[Martin Ice Web]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4677866.htm [webmasterworld.com] by aakk9999 - 10:34 am on Jun 19, 2014 (gmt 0)

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i just saw the new amazon mobile phone and its scanning options to find any items you scan with it and get a direct link to amazon.
I bet this will kill many ecom searches in google as poeple donīt have to search anymore but just get the product detail page on amazon.
Amazon pushes google out for ecom searchs. How long will google biased/supported amazon serps last?

[edited by: aakk9999 at 1:17 am (utc) on Jun 21, 2014]
[edit reason] Replaced "handy" with "mobile phone" for clarity [/edit]

[ColourOfSpring]

Martin, I agree with you that it would cut out the middleman (Google) when people use the phone in this way.

I also think that if I was a bricks and mortar store owner, I'd ban these phones from my shop. What does it benefit me from having people walk into my shop, take photos of my merchandise to only then buy them from a different vendor? I'd feel like they're just using my merchandise as a means to purchasing on Amazon.

In any case, I can see people using this device to take photos of friend's shoes, tshirts, books, whatever. There will be many opportunities to use it outside of shops where I think shop owners will probably simply end up banning people taking photos!

[EditorialGuy]

I bet this will kill many ecom searches in google as poeple donīt have to search anymore but just get the product detail page on amazon.

"Many" searches, or just "some"? How many e-commerce searches begin with a visit to a brick-and-mortar store?

How long will google biased/supported amazon serps last?

Probably for as long as Amazon pages and inbound link patterns give off signals that lead to high rankings.

[Robert Charlton]

To identify the phone and the features being discussed here, which you won't find by searching for "handy"...

New Amazon phone makes it easy to buy stuff ... from Amazon
June 18, 2014
[cnn.com...]

...It's called Firefly, and it contains image-, text- and audio-recognition technology to help you scan and identify books, songs, movies and other items. Amazon wants you to use Firefly so much that the feature has its own dedicated button on the side of the phone for one-stop shopping.

"The Firefly button lets you identify printed Web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, artwork, and over 100 million items, including songs, movies, TV shows, and products -- and take action in seconds," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in announcing the phone, which will run Amazon's Fire operating system....

[EditorialGuy]

The phone sounds like a great tool for compulsive Amazon shoppers, but I wonder how many of those people are searching Google anyway. I'd guess that the kind of person who'd join Amazon Prime and buy an Amazon phone is used to searching Amazon to begin with.

[Martin Ice Web]

My guess is that this only the start. If it works fine they will develop something for android and ios.
So if this works poeple donīt have to think what they have to type into Google. Amazon will give them a nice choice of related items though. Bye, Bye Google, while you still hold their hands....

[EditorialGuy]

I doubt if even Jeff Bezos thinks everyone is going to use Amazon as a starting point for commercial searches.

[dethfire]

This is a good thing. Many will be threatened by this, but it's progress for the consumer and will be the future. Roll with it or become a dinosaur.

[netmeg]

Then there's the whole AT&T thing...

[EditorialGuy]

Many will be threatened by this, but it's progress for the consumer

Or, just maybe, it's a sales tool for Amazon. It's certainly a niche product. Maybe it could come with 10 free hours of "shopping addiction" counseling.

[Planet13]

"Or, just maybe, it's a sales tool for Amazon."

Of course it's a sales tool for Amazon, and amazon prime customers are going to love it!

"Maybe it could come with 10 free hours of "shopping addiction" counseling."

No, but it will provide a CONVENIENT link to a book about overcoming shopping addiction... which can be purchased off amazon for the low, low price of only $9.99...

~~~~

@ netmeg

"Then there's the whole AT&T thing... "

I hope you won't mind clarifying a bit for us people who are products of the California Public Education System and thus might not of that which you are referring.

[driller41]

The range of products Amazon sells is becoming scary, if you are a competitor - be worried. Just as an aside I needed an inner tube for a wheel barrow tyre last week of a certain size, guess what, 2 minute search and I had it on amazon, I was musing where locally I got have got one from - nowhere.

Whatever I need is now on amazon, horse products last week, this week car seat covers, I can find it all with ease and the price is generally good, if it is higher I normally still order as I 'know them' and dont want to faff around setting up new accounts with other online shops.

Now couple Amazons new firefly system with same day delivery - which they are super keen to be able to do and really the high street will start to die.

[EditorialGuy]

Of course it's a sales tool for Amazon, and amazon prime customers are going to love it!

Yep. Like I said: It's a niche product.

Good thing, too, because if there's one thing small e-commerce sites don't need, it's for the majority of consumers to say "Bye, bye Google" in favor of doing all their shopping searches at Amazon. As the expression goes, "Be careful what you wish for."

[not2easy]

Good thing, too, because if there's one thing small e-commerce sites don't need, it's for the majority of consumers to say "Bye, bye Google" in favor of doing all their shopping searches at Amazon.

Amazon has that taken care of too - just open an Amazon Store and they'll sell and ship for a cut of the action.. you wouldn't want to be left out, right?

[ColourOfSpring]

Good thing, too, because if there's one thing small e-commerce sites don't need, it's for the majority of consumers to say "Bye, bye Google" in favor of doing all their shopping searches at Amazon.

I could not disagree more. The FUTURE of small businesses depends on the very opposite of your opinion, and this phone won't matter to small businesses with niche products/services on offer. The future of small businesses depends upon them saying goodbye to Google, and looking at a number of ways to win traffic to their sites:-

- word of mouth
- traditional advertising (local)
- grassroots marketing (getting involved in communities and related business ventures)
- social media

Before search engines, that's pretty much how small businesses (offline) promoted themselves i.e. through EFFORT! Then came along search engines and they were gifted a way to win passive traffic. Now we've gone full circle and we're back to relying on more cause-and-effect methods to winning traffic.

I realise that WebmasterWorld is skewed quite heavily to webmasters who run information sites (not e-commerce), but I'd like to remind people here that you don't need a lot of traffic to earn pretty decent money for an e-commerce site that converts well. One of my sites earns me around Ģ750 profit per month, and this is with just 85-95 uniques per day. That's after ALL costs. This site gets almost zero traffic from Google.

Amazon's new phone will appeal to commodity product shoppers, but for small businesses that aren't drone-dropshipper / affiliate zombies (but have something more unique to offer), they can rely on the fact that people are people, and they don't care how they found your product or service, they're just glad they found it.

[EditorialGuy]

I could not disagree more. The FUTURE of small businesses depends on the very opposite of your opinion

The "opposite of my opinion" would be the belief that small businesses will benefit if searchers flee Google for Amazon. That sounds like quite a stretch to me.

Saying "goodbye to Google" for Amazon is like jumping out of the frying pan and into the Fire (pun intended).

[ColourOfSpring]

The "opposite of my opinion" would be the belief that small businesses will benefit if searchers flee Google for Amazon.

No, the opposite of your opinion is to not rely on a 3rd party platform like Google or Amazon for your business to succeed.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 12:26 am (utc) on Jun 21, 2014]

[EditorialGuy]

Nope, but in any case, why don't we get back to the topic of this thread?

The OP speculated that Amazon's new smartphone will "kill many ecom searches in google." Will it? I don't think so, because the Amazon Fire smartphone is targeted to Amazon's best customers (and only U.S .and UK customers, at least for the time being). Most of those people aren't aren't likely to be searching Google for widgets anyway, unless they're using Google as a quick way to search Amazon.

Does anyone here seriously believe that the Amazon Fire smartphone is a game-changer, especially at a U.S. price that ranges from $199 to $649? The concept and price scream "miche product for technophobic Amazon Prime customers" to me.