Albertsons Companies, Google deal is all about ads, not groceries
Albertsons Companies and Google this week announced a multi-year omnichannel customer experience partnership.
The two have been collaborating behind the scenes for the past year and are now debuting several new features that aim to make the shopping experience easier and more exciting.
Whilst many people took this as news that Google was somehow getting into the grocery industry, that wasn’t the case, according to Rick Watson, CEO and Founder, RMW Commerce Consulting.
“Google closed a big sales deal. That's really the entire story. But, yeah, it's about ads too,” he said in a LinkedIn post.
“Google has something unique. Most people use Google Maps. And most retailers find it too expensive to answer customer service.”
“And Google wants to continue to find new surfaces to embed its capabilities deeper into the lives of consumers. So that it can sell better ads.”
Watson added: “So ultimately, this is about ads. But it doesn't seem that way on the surface. And it was spun as being about grocery, although nothing about this sales deal is unique to grocery.”
“It just has to do with any firm that has a high number of local/map searches - they are a hot prospect for Google. The more surfaces Google controls down the sales/service funnel, the more data they get their hands on about consumer intent.”
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