Amazon to Not Pay For Google Shopping Listings

Posted by on September 11, 2012 in Amazon, Comparison Shopping, Featured, Free CSEs, Marketplaces

In what we can catalog in the “extremely interesting yet not terribly shocking but very impactful” news section, Amazon has stated that they have pulled their listings from Google Shopping.

Anyone who’s done product searches on the previously free Google Product Search/Shopping will remember seeing Amazon monopolizing many of the top search results given that a) Google considered them a very high authority site, and b) there’s nearly nothing that Amazon doesn’t sell.

As a result of this news, retailers not named Amazon will no longer have to compete with their biggest competitor who in theory would have a near limitless budget in Google Shopping spending.

The reasons for their motivations in doing so are speculative. Aside from the obvious savings in advertising costs, this New York Times article speculates that Amazon is seeing Google as a threat to being a one-stop destination for shopping online, a position that Amazon has been king of for quite some time now, so by removing their listings from Google it limits the consumer choices who will have to go to Amazon instead.

This isn’t to say that Google Shopping won’t still have a huge number of retailers listed for any given search result, but it’s a bold statement by Amazon both symbolically and from a practicality standpoint. The gloves are now off as Google is set on taking a bigger role in the retail space, but Amazon is intent on being the alpha dog in this space.

In all it’s good news for retailers, large or small to not have to compete with Amazon for eyeballs on their products, similar to an MLB team learning that the high budgeted Yankees are bowing out of the season. Since Google Shopping Ads’ costs will be determined by the market, similar to Adwords (which interestingly enough Amazon is still on), one less high spender should in theory lower costs and increase visiblity for the rest.

*On a somewhat related note, I just discovered that Amazon’s logo has an arrow going from “A-Z”, indicating they sell everything…from A to Z.

Edit: Upon further review it appears as if Amazon is only pulling their own product line, such as the Kindle from Google Shopping, not items related populated through their marketplace, for the time being at least.

About the AuthorTien Nguyen is a co-founder of CPC Strategy and deals with data feeds in his waking hours and often in his sleep. He spends his free time with Rubik's cubes while rooting for the underachieving Raiders and UCLA sports teams where he graduated with a mathematics/economics degree. See all posts by this author here.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=512616924 Rick Backus

    MIND = BLOWN at the A-Z arrow in the Amazon logo…

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2500302 Tien V Nguyen

      Every kiss begins with K

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1446354584 Hendrik Laubscher

    Tien, an interesting post with a very interesting last sentence.. In all seriousness I think this is a case of supply and demand. Google Shopping needs Amazon’s catalog more than what Amazon needs to be listed on Google Shopping. This also seems like something of a negotiating tactic from Amazon. Look we all know that Amazon spends millions of dollars on online advertising so it is really a matter of leveraging their asset (product data and a huge catalog) to get the best deal. Also if one looks at the last 12 months then Google should be more scared of Amazon and not vice versa… The article has a money quote “Product searches on Amazon have grown 73 percent over the last year while searches on Google Shopping have been flat, according to comScore.” All of the big Internet companies need one another thus every now and then they take a stance to ensure that their worth is quantified by the opposition.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=485529771460165 College In Focus

    Very interesting.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6907162 Caitlin Moroney

    They seem to have found a way around it…as of today, Endless is now part of “Amazon fashion,” but their PLAs (all with totally misleading price points) still appear in Google Shopping both as Endless and as “Shoeshop,” which is a redirect to Endless, then Amazon, etc.