Google Is Missing Out on the Covid E-Commerce Revolution

Online shopping wave buoys Facebook and Amazon, not Google
Google is ramping up e-commerce products on Search and YouTube

A man wearing a mask walks past the Google officers in New York. — A man wearing a mask walks past the Google officers in New York.
Photographer: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

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By Gerrit De Vynck and Mark Bergen

July 31, 2020 at 10:06 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The Covid-19 pandemic is fueling an e-commerce boom as shuttered businesses move online -- but Google isn’t benefiting in the way its big tech rivals are.

Google advertising sales fell 8% in the second quarter, causing overall revenue at parent Alphabet Inc. to shrink for the first time. The company’s main digital ad rival Facebook Inc. saw sales jump 11%, while Amazon.com Inc. revenue soared 40%.