Six billion dollars seems like a lot to pay for a website that gives out coupons and whose assets may not be much more than a brand presence, some code, and a few databases. Yet that seems exactly what Google plans to do.

Add to this the emergence of Facebook Marketplace, which may or may not be a genius application, but it will have at least 500 million potential customers.

According to Doug Stephens, our favorite retail futurist, if you are smaller than Google, Facebook, or Walmart your choices are pretty limited at this point. Not that all hope is lost.

Here is Doug’s very simple advice on how to deal with this megatrend:

Any specialty retail business that stands on selection, price or convenience as its point of competitive differentiation will be toast… if not today then very soon.

Between Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, EBay ,Google Boutiques, Wal Mart and a host of others, the price, convenience and selection markets are cornered.  And they’re already scaled beyond the point where you could ever dream of catching up so throw away any notions you have about trying.  It’s a fight you can’t win.  And frankly if you think you’re winning at it, you’re losing.

Here’s what’s left for you to compete on – service, shopping experience and product quality.  Choose at least one of these and dominate in it.

But by dominate, I don’t just mean be good at it.

I mean be extraordinary.  Be remarkable to the point where you become famous for it. Hire it.  Train it.  Instil it in your people and reward them when they do it.  Communicate it at every marketing touch point.  Get so good at it other businesses come to you to learn how to do it.  Treat it like a religion.  Write a book on it.  Be so ridiculously excellent at it that no competitor would bother trying to beat you at it.  Put it on a T-shirt.  Be it! Own it! Tweet it! Crush it! Live it!

A positive reaction to a megatrend – words to live by.