E-COMMERCE WAR: Google Is Entering The Ultimate Battle With Amazon And eBay

Adding to a six-month-long drumbeat of rumors, Google is reportedly preparing the launch of a same-day delivery service, Google Shopping Express, TechCrunch reports.

Google has many of the pieces for such a service already. Its shopping search can tell when a given item is in stock in stores nearby. Its Wallet service processes payments. And through the on-the-ground work it does to create Google Maps, the company has far more experience with real-world logistics than one might suspect.

More recently, it has bought startups like Bufferbox and Channel Intelligence to bolster its commerce offerings and expand the teams working on shopping projects.

Google Shopping Express, like Amazon's Prime membership, would offer unlimited deliveries for an annual fee—$69, according to TechCrunch's sources, or $10 cheaper than Amazon's membership.

The same-day delivery service, which has reportedly been tested by Google employees in recent months, would also compete with eBay Now. eBay just recently expanded its same-day delivery service, which has couriers ferry goods from the retail locations of partners like Macy's and Target to customers who then pay with its PayPal service, to San Jose, Calif.

Amazon is widely believed to be preparing a massive expansion of same-day delivery, now that it is losing the advantage it had of not having to collect sales tax in many states. And retailers like Walmart are testing their own delivery programs.

Amazon, eBay, and Google are all giant players in e-commerce.

Amazon and eBay make money directly through transactions—Amazon primarily as a retailer, eBay primarily as a middleman.

Google profits from e-commerce in a more subtle way, by directing consumers' commercial intent to its advertisers. It knows when it drives sales by tracking clicks; the vast number of clicks it generates in turn helps Google refine the placement and targeting of advertising.

The move from e-commerce to the larger world of physical retail threatens Google's clickstream. That's why we see Google experimenting with so many different kinds of local commerce, from Groupon-style deals to its tap-to-pay Wallet smartphone app. Those are all attempts to track the consumer from the advertisement to the sale—from the expression of intent to its fulfillment.

But far better for Google to actually handle everything, from the search for an item to its delivery into the consumer's hands.

"The transaction is the ultimate click," a longtime Google insider told us.

Hence the move to same-day delivery—and into an all-out battle with Amazon and eBay that will play out for years to come.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.