Google launched a same-day delivery service on Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay area in a move that could shake up shopping habits around the world.
While the new service is initially limited to the area, the web software giant has often used its local environment as a lab for experiments such as Street View which later expand across the globe.
The new service, Shopping Express, is a shot across the bow of leading web retailer Amazon and could mark a breakthrough in one of the most vexing problems that has hampered online shopping from its earliest days — the long wait between buying something online and actually getting it.
Google aims to solve this with a fleet of courier vehicles that will deliver from 15 retailers large and small to customers’ homes and offices within a three to five hour window.
“This new service brings the speed of the Web to the real world by helping you shop your favourite local stores online — in a single place — and get what you need delivered the same day,” Tom Fallows, who heads up Google Shopping Express, wrote in a company blog.
Six month membership in the service is currently free, after which Google will charge $5 for each store pickup.