Google Shopping Express dips toe in same-day home delivery Google will try to beat Amazon and eBay at their own games with a trial same-day home delivery service for online shoppers that will see Google-branded vans dropping off goods down the length of Silicon Valley. Dubbed Shopping Express, the service will allow consumers to order goods from national retailers such as Target, …
I can just imagine them flying down residential streets, bouncing violently over speed bumps and killing small children trying to cross the road as they rush deliveries of organic vegetables and the latest iWhatever to "trendy" people! No doubt they'll have cameras on them too so that Google can upgrade Streetview to be "real-time" and will probably hack passing wifi connections too I should think! And any passing pedestrians will be scanned and entered into the database of "Google Stalk" as well, which will be handy I'm sure!
I wish we could use three icons on posts, this one is definitely a "joke alert", a "your foster parents are dead" with a splattering of "big brother is watching you"!
Google Shopping is almost useless. Retailers pay to be included, and they generally have poor selection and high prices.
Amazon Search is almost useless. It frequently returns items not related to the search terms. It's getting better, but it's still a chore to sift through. Also, sorting by price is a bad joke.
In my ideal world, I would use Google Shopping to search for things from Amazon.
[Reposted from CrooksandLiars.com]
March 28, 2013 07:00 AM
Walmart Wants You To Deliver Their Packages -- For Free
<http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/walmart-wants-you-deliver-their-packa>
By Susie Madrak
Jesus, it's just too early in the day for this kind of insanity. Yes, you would <http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-retail-walmart-delivery-idUSBRE92R03820130328>"share" your car with Walmart's packages and they would give you a small discount to cover the cost of gas, but they wouldn't "share" your insurance costs if you get into an accident on the way, and you certainly wouldn't get paid for your time. In other words, you get to work FOR FREE! Feel the oligarchy!
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is considering a radical plan to have store customers deliver packages to online buyers, a new twist on speedier delivery services that the company hopes will enable it to better compete with Amazon.com Inc.
Tapping customers to deliver goods would put the world's largest retailer squarely in middle of a new phenomenon sometimes known as "crowd-sourcing," or the "sharing economy."
Wal-Mart is making a big push to ship online orders directly from stores, hoping to cut transportation costs and gain an edge over Amazon and other online retailers, which have no physical store locations. Wal-Mart does this at 25 stores currently, but plans to double that to 50 this year and could expand the program to hundreds of stores in the future.
Wal-Mart currently uses carriers like FedEx Corp for delivery from stores - or, in the case of a same-day delivery service called Walmart To Go that is being tested in five metro areas, its own delivery trucks.
"I see a path to where this is crowd-sourced," Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com in the United States, said in a recent interview with Reuters.
[...] Wal-Mart has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home, Anderson explained.
Wal-Mart would offer a discount on the customers' shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in return for the delivery of packages, he added.
Wow. I really didn't think Walmart could stoop any lower, but I see I underestimated them.
This is a company that has already "crowd sourced" their low wages by having the rest of us subsidize their food stamps. They also "crowd sourced" employee health insurance by holding workshops telling employees how to apply for Medicaid.
This, from a company that's owned by the <http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1034216/american_dynasty%3A_wal-mart%27s_walton_family_has_the_wealth_of_48.8_million_families_combined>wealthiest family in America.
Same day delivery isn't a problem and if de-centralised warehousing is used can be achieved with delivery times of less than an hour per five miles from the warehouse in major urban areas as long as the warehouses are based within or on the edge of a central population areas, the problem is no one wants to pay for it.
If you consider Royal Mail Special Delivery costs from £5.90 for a before 1pm next day delivery the companies offering same day delivery expect to pay less than £5.00 to the delivery company for sameday while charging the customer twice that regardless of volume with free warehousing of their goods as well, an unrealistic expectation.
If companies want to offer an efficient and cost effective sameday service they simply need to do the deliveries in house but that takes someone who has worked in and dealt with the sameday industry rather than someone who wears a suit and has a degree which unfortunately won't happen.
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