Google ramps up e-commerce play with last mile solutions

Booming markets, such as the post-pandemic e-commerce scene, harbour a multitude of opportunities: Google’s latest B2B play will attempt to smooth one of the knottiest areas of online selling.

Why it matters

Effectively, we as consumers now expect a lot from our online shopping: “consumer expectations around delivery speed and visibility have reached an all-time high”, Google writes in a press release. “At the same time, last-mile delivery is estimated to make up more than half of total shipping costs”.

While many companies won’t actually control the particulars of the last mile before an item reaches the buyer, consumers now expect a fast, effective experience. While this product is aimed at delivery operators, brands – whose perception of value, good service, and overall experience depends on good delivery – should take note.

Otherwise, this is also an interesting story about spotting an opportunity in the growing competition against Amazon.

What’s happening

Announced through the Google Maps product blog, the cloud company explains that the new product, Last Mile Fleet Solution, builds on its existing Rides and Deliveries mobility software to help businesses with “capturing valid addresses, planning delivery routes, efficiently navigating drivers, tracking shipment progress, and analyzing fleet performance.”

A crucial part of the idea is the final aspect of the user’s experience. Missing packages aren’t new, and neither are incorrect addresses. This new system aims to help capture better addresses, show people arrival times and give detailed delivery information.

Who is this for?

Google is a titan in online advertising partly because it made advertising (and, almost more important, analytics) accessible to businesses too small to promote themselves on traditional media. It did so by helping manage costs and performance.

The opportunity, then, is in speaking to smaller logistics providers than Amazon, Walmart, or Shopify to help them compete (which should be good news for brands) by doing the things that Google already does.

For agencies, too, there is big potential. As the IAB Europe’s chief economist Daniel Knapp explained last year, advertising is totally changed by e-commerce: for agencies this will involve an acceleration in commerce, tech and experience, while the economic demands of a costly e-commerce operation will necessitate more efficient as well as effective advertising.

Sourced from Google, WARC