So the latest and greatest (you can decide for yourself if it is) from Google has arrived today. Well at least for those in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I’m not really sure what to call this. Is it e-commerce? Is it traditional brick and mortar? But I guess it doesn’t really matter what we call it, because it’s happening. So what’s the big deal?
They are looking for “testers” right now in the San Francisco area to try the program out. You buy products, they get to work the kinks out of the logistics, and figure out how much they are going to need to charge people to make this work.
The process goes something like this – Apply to be a tester.
They will ask you a couple of questions about what else? Shopping, both online and off.
Then they ask a really funny question, (I will assume it’s innocent and for potential future phone app development for this product) because I’m not sure how it fits.
Again I am not sure how that applies to buying products from brick and mortar stores online to be delivered to your physical house the same day.
If you get accepted they will give you free delivery for 6 months. What it will cost you after, you won’t know till… after. But hey for 6 months you can have happy smiling guys in white Google labeled vans deliver an unlimited number of same day items to your house.
Who wouldn’t want a happy delivery guy, dropping off packages you “bought online” just a few hours ago.
You have a pretty decent selection of stores to start with for a program that is in Beta as well including Target, Staples, etc. So if you forgot milk, you can now grab it from Target. Hot date and need new clothes just hit up American Eagle or if you ran out of paper clips you can order from Staples. And the best part you get it later that day at the time you specify.
Sounds like this sure beats two day Amazon Prime shipping. I don’t know if that’s what they are trying to do here, but it has been pandered around. If anything though it appears to be a direct competition to the world’s largest retailer, Walmart who recently just rolled out a Walmart To Go same day delivery program as well. Really this could just be a new way to get more information on our lives and activities by Google so they can eventually gently remind us on our Android Phone or Google Glasses we are out of milk.
So if you live in the Bay area to find our morego to the blog post announcing it, or to apply to be a tester go directly to their pretty new Google Shopping Express site.
What’s your feedback on the new product? Why do you think Google is going this route? Is this a trend we are moving towards of same day delivery services (SDDS)?