Battle of Southern California Between Google and Amazon for Holiday Season Sale

Battle to win Southern California's shoppers for this holiday season is on. Google and Amazon have prepared to a fierce competition. As Thanksgiving and Christmas is around the corner, they expand their offering with express shipping.

As Bloomberg reported, Google on Thursday announced that it will offer next-day delivery for shoppers in Southern California, from Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Inland Empire, and other areas. This expansion of service from previous operation in Northern California, and East Coast cities in Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, Washington, and in several states in the Midwest.

Prominent merchants like Costco, Target, Kohl's and Walgreens are listed as participants in Google's express delivery service. In respond to that, Amazon announced its same-day Prime Now delivery service in the San Diego region. Amazon also teams up with local merchants in San Diego to help Amazon with its inventory. In doing so, Amazon does not need to add new storage location.

Battle to win Sourthern California's shoppers is due to its population as a prospective market. Cafifornia's most populous city, Los Angeles and San Diego have total population of more than 5 million people.

Meanwhile the entire population of Southern California, from Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and Imperial is more than 22 million. This makes the Southern California an enticing market. Especially, with U.S. e-commerce market continuous growth, which according to some analysts will reach to more than $400 billion in 2018, the battle to win the most populous area is very important to win.

Previously, Amazon has tightened up its security in preparation for grabbing more market. PC Magazine eported that Amazon added its verification process for extra layer of security. The security process is added when a customer sign in using new device.

Amazon will send security code via ext message, voice call, or authenticator app. It provides a lot more security and more difficult to crack. According to Amazon Help & Customer Service page, the verification is, "To simplify sign-in on computers and devices that you routinely use, you can tell us not to ask for a security code so that you won't need to enter a code each time you sign in."

Google also has completed a makeover on its Google Shopping apps. According to Tech Crunch, the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary announced a brand-new design for its Google Shopping search engine on Thursday. Google updated its Shopping mobile experience to feel more like a mobile application, with features that let users to tap and swipe in navigating through pages on a mobile web.

Holiday season sale, starting from Friday after Thanksgiving is a busy day for retailers to respond to consumers. In order to provide better service, Google and Amazon also prepared for this year's holiday season.