Google (GOOG) May Challenge Amazon (AMZN) In E-Commerce–WSJ

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) may enter the e-commerce business which would put it into direct competition with Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), according to The Wall Street Journal,

Reuters points out that Google relies heavily on retail ads for its revenue:

About 40 percent of Google’s revenue comes from retail sources, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of e-commerce company ChannelAdvisor.

Google is supposedly in talks with large retailers like Gap (NYSE: GPS)

Google would be entering an already crowded space. Amazon.com may be the largest site in the business. But, WalMart (NYSE: WMT), Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), JC Penney (NYSE: JPC), and Macy’s (NYSE: M) have heavily trafficked sites. The bricks and mortar companies rely on this online business to offset slow activity at its stores.

Google may hope to make some of the traditional stores allies in its competition with Amazon. That will beg the question of what Google will charge to be the middle man, and how much this would hurt the online margins of these retailers.

 

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

HPE Vol: 26,431,700
NCLH Vol: 17,600,839
LRCX Vol: 12,118,424
IVZ Vol: 4,557,369
AMD
AMD Vol: 26,902,257

Top Losing Stocks

CTRA Vol: 73,319,495
APA
APA Vol: 4,400,255
PSKY Vol: 18,873,941
COST Vol: 4,545,300
CINF Vol: 2,196,176