Google and Barnes & Noble Team Up Against Amazon

In a clear challenge to Amazon’s same-day delivery service, Google and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to deliver books within hours of orders in select places.

Book buyers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles and San Francisco can now use Google Shopping Express, the search giant’s delivery service that started last year but has been slow to take off, to order books and begin reading them by the end of the day, the New York Times reports.

Michael Huseby, head of the troubled book seller that has shuttered dozens of stores in the past five years, told the Times that the partnership was “a test.”

“It’s our attempt to link the digital and physical,” he told the Times.

Amazon, the online book seller that became an e-commerce giant, expanded same-day delivery service for goods at its warehouses this week to 10 cities, charging Amazon Prime members $5.99 and everyone else $9.98. Google, meanwhile, has used couriers in select locations to deliver goods from partner stores, charging nothing for Google Shopping Express subscribers (membership is currently free for the first six months) and $4.99 per delivery for everyone else.

[New York Times]