Google takes yet another run at ecommerce – and Amazon

At Google’s I/O software conference, Raghavan and his deputies demonstrated new features they hope will get customers more comfortable shopping with Google. — Reuters

Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan recently had an issue with his rose bushes. His wife took a photo of the plants on her phone, uploaded the image to Google, identified the culprit and followed a link for a fungicide. Then she bought it.

A seamless transaction that didn’t involve typing into a search bar, it was a real-life test of sorts for Raghavan’s strategic vision. A senior vice-president responsible for most of Google’s largest services – search, maps, advertising and more – the 61-year-old executive is determined to crack ecommerce, a market projected to hit US$2.27 trillion (RM10.03 trillion) in 2025 that the Alphabet Inc division has tried and failed to figure out many times before.