Another Google post? I promise I’m not on the Google payroll! For some reason Google just seems to keep pushing out a steady stream of new products and other items of interest. As the 500 pound Gorilla on the block we are kind of required to keep track of them. So what’s the new commerce search all about?
Google describes their new Commerce Search as “a powerful search solution designed specifically with online retail enterprises in mind.” To get an understanding of this from the horses mouth, click here to view Google’s info video (2:16 in length).
From an initial review of Google’s information it seems like they are providing a good deal of functionality that would be of interest to the small business online reseller who does not have the funds for a more sophisticated shopping cart or eCommerce hosting environment. Here’s some of what you get:
- Google search technology so that visitors may find the right products faster
- Filter results by category, price, brand or other attributes
- Boost or promote chosen products within search results
- Ability to promote specific products, vendors, or product categories at the top of your search results
- Ability to to choose whether to display product images, descriptions, etc
- Custom reports including result sets, top queries, product promotion clicks, and special feature usage
- Ability to search refinement by product category, price, price range, brand, or any other product attribute you choose.
Another benefit is your products and store are living in the Google hosting infrastructure so if you have some product take off and start to get tons of traffic you’ve covered. The Google system will allow your traffic to scale up to handle whatever may come.
The Catch
There’s always a catch. This is a good one, pricing. Pricing starts at $50,000 per year.
‘Nuff said!
Perhaps as this develops some parts of this functionality will trickle down in a way that it might be used by the smaller online businesses. We’ll see.
50k per year?? Is that really the cost?
Hello Web Design Guy,
Yeah I know that’s pricy huh! Thanks for the feedback and for checking out our blog.
Cheers,
Jason