While most speculators are focused on the accelerating battle between Amazon and Walmart I think that it is only Google that has a chance to unseat Amazon in the world of Ecommerce.
The first question is why not Walmart?
The simple reason is that while I think Walmart is going to be a major player in Ecommerce Marketplaces it just does not have the proper branding to unseat Amazon. Amazon attracts people from across the socio-economic spectrum but Walmart is considered to be for "poor people". I just don't see Walmart bringing in many high net-worth people but Amazon can bring in the low net-worth people.
The next, bigger, question is why Google?
Well the main reason is that Google has the size & the motivation to actually do something big. The size is obvious, they own the search engine space and do a lot more besides, the motivation is that Amazon is eating up one part of their ad business. Facebook is also eating up the other side of the ad business and they tried, but failed, to take them on. I think Google can do better against Amazon than they did against Facebook.
How...? Here's how!
Step 1 - Google needs a central location to send people to that can become the Marketplace they need. Google Shopping is a great start but people are not starting their product search on Google as much as they used to, they are starting on Amazon. So Google needs a place where they can retrain people to go to, to start their quest for a new widget. So, the first step is for Google to buy...
Shopping.com
I can hear you now asking "why?" Well the reason is simple, Google needs to do a good job of branding and their habit of calling everything new "Google Whatever" isn't working great but they already have Google Shopping so a transition to just 'Shopping.com' could work. Plus Shopping.com attracts millions of visitors a year, many of which do not fully overlap with existing Google Shopping customers.
Step 2 - Buy Shoprunner.com
To make this work Google is going to have to not simply copy Amazon but create a legitimate alternative to Amazon. They need to have all the perks Amazon offers but function in a different, and hopefully better, way. That means they need free 2 day shipping and Shop Runner offers that, plus their clients are some of the biggest Google Shopping advertisers.
Step 3 - Bring back Google Wallet or buy out a new and innovative payment processor. This is a critical step, you will understand more in a bit, Google needs to have an in-house, fully integrated, way to take orders.
Step 4 - Make Youtube Red part of the Shop Runner deal and, hopefully, drop the price to $89 (or even better $79) dollars a year. Doing this makes them instantly competitive with Amazon Prime in terms of perks. I don't really use anything from Amazon Prime except for the shipping and Kindle perks, other people do but I feel confident in saying that most of their services just suck. Especially their video streaming, it has a terrible library. But everyone uses Youtube and having that ad free + exclusive stuff is a great perk. A decent music selection is included as well. This makes them competitive but different to what Amazon offers. They will still be missing the Kindle component but I think they can survive that and down the road they can always put their Google Books library to good use and get a competitor going, especially if they team up with big publishers (who hate Amazon) but that is outside today's scope.
Step 5 - Turn Shopping.com into a hybrid Comparison Shopping Engine (like Google Shopping is now) and a Marketplace (like what Amazon is).
Basically Google commits to not competing with their vendors and keeps sending traffic to the vendors sites directly but creates the option to let customers complete an order without ever leaving Shopping.com. They do this with the integrated wallet (told you it would be important). This should be an 'opt-in' thing but Google should also give preference to vendors that use it, as well as give preference to vendors using Shop Runner. Very quickly everyone who gets a lot of traffic and sales from Google Shopping will turn this on.
Step 6+ - Google leverages its own ad channels as well as other ad channels to promote this fantastic new Amazon alternative. As the traffic to Shopping.com grows they can ad an internal ad system, like what Amazon has, to grow their revenue even more. Google will now have a tool to start clawing back those widget searches and a number of resources (like Youtube, Gmail, Google.com, and the GDN ad network) to promote and grow this resource. The real secret will be to grow their "Google Prime" subscribers. They will be able to do this in all kinds of ways:
Buy Hulu.com and add it's content to the subscription.
Buy Barnes & Nobel, or just joint venture with the big publishers, to create a real Kindle competitor.
Buying B & N will also allow for them to get into retail, like Amazon, and do cool and innovative things while promoting their products.
Go bigger and buy out Target or some other mid-tier national retail chain.
Create an insanely good shopping app that is powered by Shopping.com.
And so much more...
The bottom line is that Google has the best chance to take on Amazon directly and they have the motivation as they are getting eaten by Amazon on one side and Facebook on the other.