Online shoppers! Happy days are here again, with your ever-familiar Google Search now coming up with an additional feature in its image search feature – online shopping!
According to the new facility, named ‘Style Ideas’, Google Images will enable users to not only look at clothing items displayed for sale, but also will reveal accessories and other items that will go with each of the selections.
Te feature will be available via mobile search, according Google. The product innovation isx aimed to make Google a ‘shopping place’ rather than an ‘image search’ site – a clear strategy to encroach into a marketing warfare with the existing online shopping sites viz., Amazon and eBay.
‘The idea is to get people think of Google as a place to shop, not just look at images’, noted a report from the creators of Style Ideas. ‘For instance, if someone is searching for a pocketbook, other products that go well with the pocketbook will show up.’ The report noted that Google is behind Amazon in product search, and its position is getting worse.
According to a recent survey conducted within the industry, 55% of online shoppers searched via Amazon last year, a rise from 44% in the previous year. However, those who searched for product through Google declined to 28% from 34%, in the previous corresponding period. Reports are also coming in that Google may contemplate taking on Pinterest, which today has a Chrome extension tool, similar to Google’s Style Ideas.
Coming under severe marketing pressure, Google’s new strategy could make some fundamental changes to its existing search technology features. The Google Site Search product will soon ask online retailers, who have been so far capitalizing on this powerful search feature as an added feature to their own sites, to upgrade to a version taht will include ads.
Disclosing the information to cut its official Google Site Search (GSS) product, from April 1, the search engine tech giant disclosed that existing customers will be able to continue using the GSS product through the end of their current license, but will not be able to renew it or take new ones, starting the cut-off date.
The customer’s account will then automatically convert to the company’s Custom Search Engine (CSE) product. CSE offers a free, ad-supported version of Google’s search technology. A Google spokesman noted via email that CSE provides similar features and functions to GSS.
