Google Expands Same-Day Delivery Service Test Into Southern California

By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA

Company, in partnership with bricks-and-mortar retailers, looks to challenge eBay and Amazon

Google must be seeing some success from its same-day delivery service because it has announced it will be expanding the service to the Southland. Right now, the trial run service will only be available for several hundred Google employees in Santa Monica, though should the company see success with this expansion, it could eventually be opened to the general public. Indeed, when Google launched its Shopping Express pilot in March 2013, it was only available for Google employees in Northern California. However, since September, the service has been available to all customers in San Francisco and San Jose.

Those signed up for the service have access to a wide array of participating bricks-and-mortar retailers, including Target, Whole Foods, Costco, and Walgreens. Customers can compare prices at these various retailers and place items into a single online basket. Users then pay shipping costs ($4.95 for each retailer from whom they make a purchase) and select a window of time for delivery. For those looking to test the service, Google is offering a six-month period of free membership. It is still trying to determine a price for the service post-trial. Google hasn’t said a whole lot about the service, except that it’s received “great feedback” thus far.

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One of the latest companies to join the same-day delivery service through Google was Costco, which signed on in November, right at the start of the holiday season. The service is particularly beneficial for Google, which can use the Shopping Express service as a means to compete against Amazon, but without the expenses needed to purchase inventory and build warehouses. It’s also a key arrangement for retailers, like Costco, which, through their partnership with Google, expand their online presence and also stand to steal away more sales from the ever-threatening Amazon.

Same-day delivery services are all the rage these days, as can be seen by the recent expansion of Amazon Fresh into San Francisco (in addition to Amazon’s separate same-day delivery service available in 11 cities), and eBay Now, which is expected to be overtaking 25 cities this year. Even Walmart has thrown its hat into the same-day shipping ring in a limited number of locations. Indeed, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ dreams of delivering goods via drone also signal that same-day shipping is the future and it’s going to involve some high-tech experiments. However, according to 9to5Google, same-day delivery via drones should’ve been old news. Sources connected to Google told Seth Weintraub back in February 2013 that Google was also planning strategies that would involve shipping customers’ goods via drones or self-driving cars. Of course, like Amazon, it has a lot of hurdles to jump through before it can begin to offer this form of delivery, but it’s safe to say that at some point in the future, Google’s Shopping Express, in partnership with various retailers, and Amazon could be battling it out in the skies.

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