It isn't technically Google-operated: they've outsourced it, which is fairly common for promotional goods. (McDonalds doesn't specialize in making T-shirts, after all.)
What I find hilarious is that if you buy an $8 T-shirt from Google you can actually talk to a human being about it, which makes that approximately the only Google-brand product sold for under $100,000 where that is reliably true.
For more details check this earlier post on HN : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652807
Apparantly google is outsourcing it to some 3rd party (in this case it's Merchandise Mania Ltd, Borehamwood, UK)
Google has had a store for a long time. As far as I can tell it was at one time the only way they were making money - before AdWords and the Google Appliance were invented.
$5.20 (plus shipping) for 4 pens that "write amazingly well" is too much money? Why not just buy the ones you like and stop spending time/energy on the "problem"?
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 41.6 ms ] threadWhat I find hilarious is that if you buy an $8 T-shirt from Google you can actually talk to a human being about it, which makes that approximately the only Google-brand product sold for under $100,000 where that is reliably true.
I'm always amazed at the amount of people that stop in front of the Yahoo! sign to take photos.
Pretty annoyed that they want CC details before telling me shipping, though. I wanted some Google grocery bags!
It's not about the money by any means. 1) I use a pen pretty rarely. 2) I'm not spending time or energy on the "problem."