I’ve read a lot of comments recently over whether the new Google Base is likely to become a “Category Killer”, taking large amounts of business away from eBay, Craig’s List, Yahoo Shopping and even Amazon.
While Google certainly has the money to make a big splash into any market, I don’t think that their entry into the classified space will be the category killer people fear. Two factors will continue to weigh heavily in favor of some of the existing players:
- Specialization: EBay has developed an extensive community of buyers and sellers, with its ranking system at the heart of its success. Will Google, a technology-driven company, put the work in to build its community effectively? Amazon, through its reviews, has become the first place most of us look to assess a consumer purchase. Others have tried to emulate that, but none have succeeded.
- Local presence: Craig’s List has been able to cultivate a local feel in its markets, critical for classified sales of a car, a sofa or guitar. The usability of Craig’s List is strong, as they built their system with users, not technology in mind.
One downside to Google Base will be its massive size. Because it’s free and it’s from Google, I expect the database to become huge, with many commercial enterprises spending numerous hours keying in all of their products. That mass will likely make it unwieldy, unless sellers do an exceptional job of tagging (unlikely).
I think that Google Base will certainly have an impact. It probably will continue to accelerate the decline of newspaper classifieds and have modest erosive effect on eBay, and Craig’s List. But, technology does not always make for the best user experience. I’ve tried a few times to use Yahoo Shopping and always abandoned it, frustrated. The existence of Google Base may require eBay and Craig’s List to continue to improve their user experience, and it may push the price of a future Knight Ridder acquisition down. But, it’s unlikely to become the dominant player in the classified space in the near term.
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