哥斯拉vs.摩斯拉：谷歌与亚马逊的电商大战

    从前我在eBay工作的时候，我们相信，没有人会通过完全复制我们的做法来与我们竞争。我们具有所谓的“先行者优势”和网络效应。随着eBay的强势发展，亚马逊（Amazon）和雅虎（Yahoo）都推出了各自的拍卖市场，而这两个市场基本上一推出就已经宣告死亡了。我们最关心的是有人可能会以一种全新的、颠覆性的方法，也就是一种全新的业务模式来与我们竞争。

    后来我们相信，谷歌（Google）日渐兴起的搜索业务将成为eBay面临的最大威胁。eBay能帮助用户找到一般很难找到的独特商品。而谷歌的目标是把全球的信息组织起来，它也能帮用户找到很难找到的独特商品。二者的机制和模式虽然有所不同，但是二者的重合却是明显的，所以我们把谷歌看成是头号竞争威胁。

    这个想法后来被时任谷歌高管的谢丽尔•桑德伯格证实了。几年前我和桑德伯格出席了财捷集团（Intuit）的一次活动并担任演讲嘉宾。我在发表完演讲后，继续留在会场里听桑德伯格演讲。在回答一个问题的时候，桑德伯格说了一句话，大意是：“我们早就知道，谷歌主要的竞争对手是eBay”。我差点跳起来大吼：“我早就知道！”而且eBay当时还是谷歌的一个非常重要的广告客户。我们每年送给谷歌大量的钱，但是它们却用这笔钱来与我们竞争。

    对于今天的谷歌来说，我越来越相信，谷歌最重要的竞争对手并不是另一个搜索引擎，比如雅虎、必应（Bing）、百度（Yahoo）或日本雅虎（Yahoo! Japan），而是亚马逊。因为亚马逊正在带来一种全新的搜索模式——也就是产品搜索。

    亚马逊是一个主要关注如何帮助用户寻找产品的垂直搜索引擎。在亚马逊的网站上，搜索一款产品最主要的方式就是利用这个网站的搜索框。用户只需键入一个关键词，然后网站就会列出满足查询条件的结果。搜索结果的顺序是按一定的算法决定的，而这个算法的目的旨在优化商品的相关性和刺激用户付钱。听起来是不是很耳熟？

    在我个人使用的过程中，我发现与谷歌相比，我越来越喜欢在亚马逊上搜索产品。亚马逊的购物体验更加出色，而且它在商品选择、商品价格和便利性这三大零售业成功法则上做得都更胜一筹。它的产品搭配越来越全面，直销产品越来越多，同时还有大量第三方商家入驻。亚马逊的商品价格几乎一直极有竞争力，以至于我差不多已经不再用谷歌来货比三家了。而且亚马逊还提供了最快捷、最省钱的物流方案，尤其是亚马逊的Prime服务（它对我产生了一种有趣的影响，让我想在亚马逊上多买些东西，好确保我每年７９美元的会员费可以得到最大化的利用）。我在亚马逊只花一分钟就下单，因为我相信我很可能是以最低的价格买下的这款产品，同时又能获得免费包邮和快速的递送服务。

    相比之下，在谷歌上购物更像是在干活。谷歌上有无穷无尽的选择，不过你得在海量的搜索结果里筛选出你想要的东西。你必须费一番周折才能找到最优惠的价格，尤其是你还得在每个搜索结果里对比价格和运费的高低。而且当你从一个新的商家那里找到一款产品准备下单时，还得重头填写所有的付款信息和运费信息。在谷歌上买东西可能需要一个小时的时间，而不是像亚马逊那样一分钟就能搞定。

    When I was at eBay, we had a belief that no one was going to compete with us by replicating exactly what we were doing. We had first mover advantages and network effects. Amazon and Yahoo! both launched auction marketplaces in response to eBay's strong growth, and both businesses were essentially DOA. What did concern us was that someone would compete with us with a new, disruptive approach—a completely different take on the business.

    Early on, we came to believe that Google's emerging search business was the biggest threat that eBay faced. eBay helped users find hard-to-find, unique products. Google's goal of organizing the world's information also helped users find hard-to-find, unique products. The mechanisms and models were different, but the overlap was clear and we came to view Google as our top competitive threat.

    This thought was validated after the fact by then-Google executive Sheryl Sandberg. We both were guest speakers at the same Intuit event a few years back, and I stayed after my talk to listen to Sheryl. In response to a question, Sheryl said something along the lines of, "We knew early on at Google that our key competitor was eBay." I almost jumped to my feet shouting, "I knew it!" It did not make me feel any better that eBay was one of Google's very top advertisers at the time, and that we were paying them tons of money that they were in turn using to compete with us.

    In Google's case today, I am becoming increasingly convinced that their most challenging competitor isn't another search engine like Yahoo!, Bing, Baidu or Yahoo! Japan. It's Amazon, which is bringing a completely different take on search—in this case, product search.

    Amazon is a vertical search engine focused on helping users find products. The overwhelmingly dominant way to find things on their site is the search box. Users enter a keyword phrase and are presented with results that match his or her query. The order of the search results is determined by algorithms that seek to optimize relevance and monetization. Sound familiar?

    In my personal website use, I increasingly find myself searching for products on Amazon instead of Google. Shopping on Amazon is a superior user experience and it runs the table on the magical retailer formula of selection, price and convenience. It has an increasingly comprehensive product assortment, with their ever-expanding direct sales supplemented by third-party merchants who sell on the platform. Prices are almost always extremely competitive, so much so that I have pretty much stopped using Google to comparison-shop at different merchants. And it offers the fastest and most cost effective shipping solutions, particularly in Prime (which has the interesting impact of making me want to buy goods on Amazon to make sure I get the most out of my $79/year Prime membership). I can buy an item on Amazon in a minute, secure in the knowledge that I'm likely paying the lowest price while getting free shipping and fast delivery.

    Contrast that with the shopping experience on Google. Shopping on Google is work. It has infinite selection…if you can manage to find what you're looking for amidst the forest of search results. You have to work to find the best price, typically by pogo-ing in and out of different search results to check both prices and shipping costs. And when you find a product you want to buy from a new merchant, you need to enter all the payment and shipping information from scratch. Buying on Google takes chunks of an hour, not an Amazon minute.