Can Google Steal Customers From eBay?

Predictions

from the it's-all-coming-together dept

After noting in the previous post how search engines were becoming media players, they’re also becoming e-commerce players, to a certain degree. While it may not seem initially obvious that Google and eBay compete in anything other than market valuation, the two companies are increasingly competing with each other, even if they rely on each other to some extent as well. The simple fact is that if people wanted to sell something, they used to just use eBay, since they knew that that’s where the buyers would go. However, many buyers will now just go to Google, which will point them to many different buyers, even those outside of eBay. Thus, one of the benefits for selling via eBay starts to go away, and some sellers figure out they can just set up their own online storefronts, and get attention via Google using search engine marketing and buying up some keywords. While it’s not a direct competition, it’s clear that the two giants are at least competing in some sense.