Google same-day shipping service may be difficult for search giant to pull off

March 05, 2013

When rumors of "Google Shopping Express," a same-day shipping service allegedly already being tested by Google employees, first hit the Web earlier Tuesday, most people missed the most glaring element of whole plan: Endeavors like this are insidiously difficult to pull off. Indeed, several companies—mostly online retailers—have dabbled in same-day delivery service, but no one's really figured out how to do it effectively at a large scale. First, some background. An unnamed source told TechCrunch that Google Shopping Express will be a subscription-based service like Amazon Prime, but will be $10 to $15 cheaper per year. It will allegedly offer same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar retail stores such as Target, Walmart, Walgreens, and Safeway, but TechCrunch didn't say how much extra each delivery would cost, if anything. From TechCrunch's description, Google's service sounds similar to eBay Now, which uses couriers to buy items from retail stores and deliver them to customers. But eBay Now is only available in three cities (San Francisco, New York, and San Jose), and is not profitable despite the $5 delivery cost. As the Wall Street Journal reported, eBay pays couriers $12.50 per hour, plus 55 cents per mile driven, so there's a high up-front cost just to offer this kind of service. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030076/google-same-day-shipping-service-may-be-difficult-for-search-giant-to-pull-off.html