Google Base Store Connector uploads your Amazon, eBay store listings
Was it a rude coincidence, or did Google schedule the coming-out party for its Google Base Store Connector during the same month as Amazon's zShops funeral on purpose?Google's free software allows you to upload the contents of your Amazon zShop or Marketplace listings to Google Base, which displays all types of products. You can also upload listings from eBay or Yahoo stores.
Not too many people know about Google Base yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more familiar pretty quickly.
A free selling platform like Google Base will get lots of attention with sellers unhappy with the current state of affairs at Amazon and eBay. There's certainly unrest among Pro-Merchants, and discontent at eBay is palpable.
I downloaded the Google Base Store Connector this morning, and it's completely foolproof. All I had to do to upload my listings was enter the name of my eBay Store and the URL of my zShop. However, to add my Marketplace listings, I had to enter my Amazon seller e-mail and my Amazon password (see my screenshot below). I hesitated for a minute, but got more comfortable after reading the fine print -- that the password wouldn't leave my PC.
I'm not ready to endorse Google Base yet, it still has three huge drawbacks:
The bottom line is, it just doesn't look like a marketplace. Buyers won't get it.
However, Google could fix all these problems quickly, and turn Base into the ultimate nightmare for eBay and Amazon. Suppose Google starts allowing merchants to automatically offer Google Checkout, the search engine's alternative to PayPal? It seems to be the next logical step for Google.
It seems there's not many transactions happening at Google Base right now. But make no mistake, Google can deliver millions of buyers, simply by flipping a switch. It's already sending thousands of buyers every minute of the day to Amazon and eBay, when they search for a book title or other product.
And what's to prevent Google from sending all those searchers to Google Base instead of Amazon or eBay? Nothing.
I'm not the first brainiac to think of this: Google plans to start funneling product searches to Base in December, just in time for holiday sales.
posted by Steve Weber at 10/04/2006
8 Comments:
I got all excited reading this latest post and went to get my Sotre Connector to do my upload. Darnit, once again because I have a Mac, I cannot play with the big boys. No bulk listing for me it seems. Was a Powerseller on eBay for years without the help of bulk uploading tools as eBay said they never have and never will create any tools for us Mac users. Ouch. Can you imagine being a Powerseller and listing over 100 items a week one item at a time? Well we will press on.
Coming into the holiday season, we'll see how this works out. Could this be the end of Ebay? Amazon? Doubtful, but a good run for the money?
Maybe Google listened to the unhappy Ebay and Amazon sellers. Is this the beginning or the end?
I know you said that you could upload listings from eBay or Yahoo stores. Could you upload listings from half.com? Half sellers seem very disconted with half.com right now.
I meant discontented. I should have previewed.
Great question, Anonymous, I hadn't thought of that. It does appear eBay is going to keep Half.com running, so why it's not included in this Google Base Store Connector is a mystery to me.
My guess is that:
1. Google asked for cooperation from eBay/Half and didn't get it; or,
2. Google wants to limit listings to "pro" sellers who've made the investment in a storefront.
Come to think of it, why wouldn't Alibris or ABE.com be included? I guess Google wants to limit Base to modern, standardized products with ISBNs and UPCs and they don't want to mess around with collectibles.
Personally, I think I'll wait to see what Google Base turns into. So far, with the above-noted deficiencies (some of which are major), it looks stillborn to me.
Amazon has so long dominated the bookselling arena that I think it will take more than this to change people's buying habits. If you can think back to when you used a search engine to search for a book, you'll also recall the vast majority of results you received linked to Amazon, and this has been the case for so many years I think buyers have fallen into the habit of just going to Amazon to search for the book in the first place.
I'll be the first to agree almost everyone at Amazon is grossly incompetent, and just as much as anyone, I wish a decent alternative would surface, but so far it doesn't look like this is it.
You're right, Anonymous, Amazon has a powerful advantage in online bookselling. That's why I recommend everyone sell there, there's a network effect -- everybody knows about it.
However, things can change quickly on the Internet. I remember when Netscape had 90 percent of the browser market. How long did it take Microsoft to take down Netscape, 2 or 3 years?
And I don't see anything in the way of Google becoming a heck of a lot more powerful than Microsoft ever was.
So I think there's two ways to look at what Google's doing with Base. The more benign explanation is, they're trying to get every standardized product listing into Base, so they can force everyone who's selling outside Amazon Marketplace, eBay, etc., to use Google AdWords to get their traffic. If they can get all products into Base, they can shut down the free search-engine traffic to independent e-commerce sites, and everyone would have to use AdWords.
The scarier explanation is, Google's planning to take over e-commerce is general. And I don't see what would stop them from doing it.
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