Game Over: Commerce on Google Base Coming Soon

Money is a type of information...

the borg grows

I have dealt with $500 or more multi country payments four times...twice it was wire transfers (which was easy enough), and the two other times it has been brutal

time #1: Romanian programmer who made some tools ... $500
- Paypal did not work to that country
- he wanted to use Ikobo, but because he already had a card the said he could not have another...though this is their policy I was unable to send money to their old account and was only told about this policy AFTER I sent money...cash advance charges on a credit card and no refund for a couple months.
- eventually paid via Western Union.

time #2: site I bought from a Canadian for $1200
- screw all that crap. will call Western Union right away.
- call Western Union. all is well right up until confirmation, where they note that I can only send $300 at a time...unless I visit a local store.
- go to a store and they require 100% cash payment.
- ended up sending a check, but those usually take about a couple weeks to get sent and clear internationally.

This is going to be brutal news for many intermidiary content sites. If Google can work out some algorithms to have a decent signal to noise ratio what happens to photo companies? template sites? etc.?

Aaron nothing happens they just move to selling in yet another venue.

Well free access to information via search hurt certain intermediaries...free access to abundant information on other verticals will cause a change.

Even if the other businesses are fine just by the virtue of their being another venue to sell in with a low barier to entry means competition will strip away part of their market share and earnings potential.

The one thing Google really has to look out for is to ensure they are not brokering or profiting from stolen copyright information...but they sorta already are via AdSense on sites with stolen images on them.

yeah I see where your going but I think this stuff has already happened via Ebay, I don't see how the barrier can get any lower on this or how google is exposing anything new.

Do you not agree ?

When dealing with countries outside of the Paypal jurisdiction, I suggest ePassporte. Little more pricey to load cash and send, and their interface leaves a lot to be desired, but the cash gets there and it's easier than sending a money order overseas.

how google is exposing anything new

Google allowing content providers to set and forget their price is much easier than listing fees that charge even if the item doesnt sell or recurring store costs. due to cheaper computer cycles Google can afford to store stuff cheaper and work on thinner margins.

Google is willing to offer space for free stuff on there to help new people get no cost exposure.

eBay is primarily a search for a need and buy the matching items. sometimes you cant even buy...sometimes you have to wait on it, and then sometimes there are BS high reserve prices and lots of other junky stuff.

their search criteria are primarily
time left (which with Google Base could be virtually forever)
keywords (Google can do that type of search better)
bid price & # of bids (the whole auction model attracts people looking for underpriced deals)

instead of focusing on ending soon underpriced deals Google base can use their feedback data from browse history and buy history and items submitted by the same person to give a better signal to noise ratio then eBay offers.

just search eBay for SEO ... see if 99% of the stuff offered isn't garbage. the only real sign of quality is price, but even that can be manipulated by shill bidders, and price does not usually jump until the auction is almost over.

99% of seo stuff on google base is probably garbage too, but search and commerce are about being able to bring that good 1% to the top...and I think Google can do that better than eBay.

If they do start doing a payment service, it'll get paypal to lift their game a little.

in addition to and kind of related to the points aaron made is the fact that google's marketing reach is so much deeper than ebay's. for instance wait for relevant google base ads to popup in your gmail, in search queries, when your chatting with google talk, in google print, and whatever else. and of course when this goes viral, which i would wager is virtually inevitable, it will be another revenue tool for publishers looking to supplement their adsense income.

Good points aaron

ebay may have a dependency on Google 9or at least an addicition ;-)

I always felt it was more of a branding impression buy than anything else, as almost every Google query gets an impression of "buy crap on ebay" so it must be worthwhile for ebay.