Shopping.com parent eBay has reportedly acquired local product inventory site Milo.com for $75 million in cash. Milo was aspiring to become the “Google of local product data.” The acquisition is a bit of a surprise to me but problably came out of discussions about a strategic investment. I believe Milo and Shopping.com were in discussions […]
In time for the holidays Google is making it possible for online (and mobile) shoppers to discover real-time product inventory in local stores. Google certainly isn’t the first company to make a run at this; there are multiple startups that have been working on bringing local product inventory online for a number of years. But […]
There are a number of “social shopping” sites and, of course, numerous product or shopping-related blogs. Among the most visible in the first category are Kaboodle, ThisNext/Stylehive and Polyvore. They offer tools and features that allow people to share, compare and vote on products. The mainstream shopping comparison engines such as Shopping.com or PriceGrabber don’t […]
Milo.com has undertaken a most ambitious project — to be the Google of local product inventory data. The site, which just announced it has come out of beta with 1 million monthly users, is trying to create a massive database of real-time inventory from local (mostly big box) stores. Right now the site offers live […]
If Bing can brand itself “decision engine” as a strategy to differentiate from the leading “search engine” so can shopping comparison site TheFind. The latter is now calling itself a “buying engine” as a way to emerge from the anonymous sea of shopping search sites out there. This morning a redesigned TheFind went live with […]
What amazes me is that in more than a decade no “brand” has really emerged in shopping search. What do I mean by “brand”? I mean a site that’s top-of-mind for consumers, trusted and that they navigate to directly for products and product information. One could say that the exceptions to this are Amazon, eBay […]
For some time I’ve tried to argue that product search is part of “local search,” because 90 percent or more of all products searched for online are purchased in physical stores. This is a neglected part of the local search story, which has heretofore largely been about “plumbers and pizza.” But the internet is fundamentally […]
There are a handful of companies that have been building local product inventory databases, many of them under the radar. They include Krillion, NearbyNow, Shopatron, Where2GetIt, Channel Intelligence, and ShopLocal. Krillion was the first to start syndicating that data. But NearbyNow is now going to take its billion product database and make it available in […]
The New York Times on Sunday covered mapping site EveryScape and its effort to create 3-D maps of urban environments, but also store and business interiors. (Here’s our post from when the site formally launched in October.) The Times’ piece focuses on the interior mapping dimension of what EveryScape is doing, which helps differentiate it […]
This Thursday is the US Thanksgiving holiday, so Friday marks the official start of the holiday shopping season for a large percentage of US consumers. Infamously known as “Black Friday” (for profit potential), many “big box” retailers will open at midnight or in the early morning hours to long lines of consumers hoping to capture […]
Product search engine Krillion has launched a feature, called “Stock Check,” that enables consumers to see if products (starting with TVs) are in stores locally, buy them online and pick them up at a range of major U.S. retail chains, including Sears, Best Buy, Circuit City, and others. Krillion had been using “click to call” […]
Often when people discuss local search they’re referring to finding restaurants or plumbers. But the concept of “local search” should include goods and product purchases as well. Whenever I discuss products and retail as part of the definition of local search people are often a little skeptical. Yet again and again studies show that consumers […]
Krillion, a shopping engine that directs people to local stores, has launched its second category, televisions. The site went live in February of this year (with appliances), under the leadership of co-founder and CEO Joel Toledano, former Director of Business Development for Yahoo Search. While the Internet continues to rapidly expand its influence over consumer […]
The Wall Street Journal (subscription req’d) writes about a partnership between mobile carrier Spint and GPShopper to provide information about local shopping inventory on mobile phones. The consumer application offered by GPShopper is called Slifter, which used to require entry of a Zip code. The partnership with Sprint removes that requirement because of the phone’s […]
Bob Tedeschi’s NY Times e-commerce column today discusses a number of companies, NearbyNow, GPShopper, Krillion, ShopLocal and StepUp seeking to make the online-offline shopping connection. The article’s hook is wireless shopping tools from NearbyNow and GPShopper.
In case you hadn’t noticed mobile marketing is generating lots of buzz these days. And with buzz usually comes revenue forecasts. Indeed, various research firms are throwing out numbers for mobile advertising, music and video that make online advertising look like a fly on the butt of an elephant by comparison. There’s a certain logic […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web:
NearbyNow, which is one of several companies trying to build a local product inventory database, has launched SMS-based mobile search for shopping malls. According to the release, the service “allows consumers to find any product, brand or sale in a shopping mall simply by sending a text message. By typing their request into their mobile […]