Amazon has long been considered the model for wringing every possible cent from every customer who enters its webspace, and in an inviting, orderly fashion. The company has made an art of forums, lists, peer reviews and tons of research to ensure that each customer can not only find what they're looking for, but find several other items of interest as well.
Some call Amazon's approach the contextual, user-engaged transaction marketplace. The bugger now is to see if Google can facilitate such interaction as it moves into non-text search areas. Up to bat first is DoubleClick. Does Google want more than a cut of each transaction as a result of a customer taking action on a DoubleClick ad? All signs point to yes. And the model it should be looking at if it is not already is Amazon.com. Well, maybe.
There is a reason Amazon.com is so successful, and I don't think it has to do with the wide selection of merchandise offered. The scope of selling tools, engaging customer interaction, use of social commerce, user recommendations, customer feedback, research tool quality and what can only be seen as one heck of a profile on each single customer are the reasons.
Amazon.com uses website tools and email tools (all highly targeted) to engage each customer as personally as possible, which makes conversion rate to a buy better than any other retailer on the planet most likely. Will Google aim for the same goal, or will it push these strategies onto partners to make them successful and remain in the shadows taking a cut of each completed transaction somehow? One's a retailer (Amazon) and one's an advertiser (Google). However, are those hats interchangeable?
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