Google Shopping May Go Deeper Into E-Commerce With “Buy Now” Button To Challenge Amazon

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Google has been floating the idea of a “Buy Now” button on Google Shopping listings as well as a two-day shipping program.

According to the article:

Google has approached retailers about creating a “buy” button for its online shopping site that would be similar to Amazon’s popular “one-click ordering” feature, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Merchants would still handle all of the logistics of selling and shipping, but the buy button would aim to keep users in the Google Shopping environment rather than leading them directly to merchants’ sites to buy a product.

The shipping program would reportedly “allow merchants to promote two-day shipping for products purchased through its shopping service, according to a person who has been briefed on the plan”.

It’s not surprising Google would be exploring additional ways to build Google Shopping into a more complete ecommerce experience beyond a product search referral engine. Google faces steeper competition from sites — Amazon in particular, of course,  but also sites like Pinterest — that users increasingly turn to for commerce search.

Whether retailers will take to these ideas remains to be seen. WSJ says reception has been “cool” because retailers are weary of price wars and losing branding control if Google confines the shopping experience to its own site.

Google has not commented beyond saying they continually test ideas.