Google announced on March 11 that Blue Dots are coming. Blue dots indicate that a product is not just available locally, but actually in-stock at a local retailer. Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm are some of the initial partners for launch, but expect more retailers to participate soon.
As I said in a post yesterday about Milo, I think we’re finally at the point where local/mobile matters. 5 yrs ago, when I first started ComparisonEngines.com, I said mobile was not quite there yet. I said the same thing 4 yrs ago, 3yrs ago, 2yrs ago, and last year. As one former CEO of a comparison shopping engine emailed me this morning, “merchants and consumers just weren’t ready.” But now that retailers have to understand local inventory to manage their ‘buy online, pick up at the store’ programs and consumers have 24/7 access to iPhone apps, we’ve hit a tipping point.
Google’s effort is just getting started. More merchants will join the program, which will make their local/mobile product much more valuable. I’m not going to get into the he said, she said debate about which company is actually providing true real time inventory vs. guesstimates. That’s not the point of this post and not important right now, although it will become important towards the holiday shopping season.
So what is the point? Local/Mobile commerce is important and Google is going to be a major player. Consumers will want to know if a product is in stock nearby vs. wasting time running from store to store checking the shelves. This is a no-brainer service.
The trick now for Google is to get merchants to take advantage of this program. Right now the blue dots seemed anemic. In the official post by Google, a search for Wii Fit in New York, NY showed 13 nearby stores which had the Wii Fit Plus [Wii Game]. When I did the same search, on the first page of results, only the EA Sports Active [Wii Game] had a Blue Dot, but was available at 0 nearby stores. On the next page of results, there were a 2 products which had Blue Dots, both the Daisy Fuentes Pilates [Wii Game] and Jillian Micahels Fitness Ultimatum [Wii Game] were available at 10 nearby stores, all Best Buy stores. I did some other searches in San Francisco for Home and Garden type products and came up with only a couple products with Blue Dots and only a couple local options.
In other words, more Blue Dots are needed!
For merchants to participate in the program, they need to fill out this form. Google also recommends making sure your Google Local Business Center Listing is up to date and that you’re submitting a great Product Search Data Feed, which of course, SingleFeed or the other Google Merchant Center partners, can help you with.
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“…But now that retailers have to understand local inventory to manage their ‘buy online, pick up at the store’ programs…”
why would anyone wana buy online and pick up at a store?
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