Ecommerce or electronic commerce is the term used for commercial transactions carried out through the internet. It consists of the distribution, sale, purchase, marketing and supply of information on products or services through the electronic network.
Originally, this expression was applied to conducting transactions through electronic means, such as electronic data interchange. However, the expression is usually used to describe the marketing and transaction of physical products on the internet, that is, an online store.
The types of ecommerce can be divided according to different criteria, the best known are:
- The goods and services they distribute. Within this type we can find the ecommerce of analog products. That is to say, they are online businesses where clothing, books, appliances and any object that is tangible is sold.
- User licenses. Digital products such as ebooks, videos, images, etc … are sold on these platforms.
- The characteristics of the agents involved in the transactions. In which services of various kinds are purchased through the Internet. For example insurance, airline tickets and tickets for shows.
Due to everything that happened, the past year 2020 has brought an increase in electronic commerce and for Google it has not gone unnoticed. The technology multinational has given some clues about the new experience it is developing for the search engine. Restrictions and confinement by covid-19 have allowed ecommerce to continue to boom, something that Google could not let go of. Therefore, by incorporating Chrome Cart in the browser, it will facilitate the integrated purchase for users.
Chromium and Chrome Cart
Chromium is an open source version of Google Chrome but without all the exclusive codecs and other elements. In this way, Google manages to differentiate itself from other browsers, managing to be not only an open source alternative but much more. It is the basis of Google’s browser engine and that of many other browsers such as Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge, are using.
And why all this? Well, it has been discovered that Google is working on the composition of a direct purchase mechanism in the browser. Under the name of Chrome Cart or shopping cart in Chrome it appears as a test function in the Chromium code. As we mentioned earlier, Chromium is Google’s open source browser in which developers can build or expand their own browsers.
Under the NTP Chrome Cart Module label, several well-known sites such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy have already been grouped together. This suggests that Chrome Cart could be a shopping cart embedded in a new tab under the search bar.
At the moment all this is just a rehearsal. But let’s recognize that having a shopping cart in the browser would be a giant step to transform Google into a complete ecommerce. Taking into account that it could exploit your advertising spaces such as Google Shopping so that users could make the purchase directly. In this way, you could buy in the app or on the Chrome website without having to navigate to the brand’s website.
Complete the purchase without leaving the search engine with Chrome Cart
Currently Google has millions of active users so your browser could act as a great exhibitor for companies. With this, what is intended is to avoid extra steps to the consumer and reduce the abandonment rates of the shopping cart. In exchange, the multinational would get a new source of income.
Another possible use of Chrome Cart would be to be able to collect various articles from different ecommerce. In this way, users could make price comparisons within the different stores that offer the same product. Even as in other platforms save them in a wish list so that when you have chosen between different options you can easily complete the purchase.
Taking into account the capacity of Google we can assure that with Chrome Cart it will take a great step to become an ecommerce. It will expand its use as a product catalog on Google Shopping and will take advantage of the information about payment customs that it hosts in Chrome Sync.
What we know today about Chrome Cart
At the moment what we know is that there is no formal news on the subject. However, when taking into account the findings of its lines of code, it can be seen that the development of this new function is quite advanced. Perhaps in a short time Google will discover its launch, for now we will have to wait to know what functions will be enabled in this tool. The only certain thing is that there is nothing 100% verified because currently Google has not made any official publication regarding Chrome Cart.