Did you hear the latest on Google’s plan to integrate a tailored shopping search on Google.com? Bob Peck, Bear Sterns’ internet analyst, reported on this earlier this week. Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes also picked it up here.
I think this could be huge. Google is already one of the primary places people go today to search for something to buy. By highlighting this to Google users more explicitly, it will “teach” everyone to go to Google to start their shopping process. By incorporating a tailored shopping search engine that is directly linked to where everyone goes – google.com – it also allows Google to more effectively tailor search results for a shopper. In other words, if Google knows you are shopping for something, it allows them to make the search results much more relevant about solely what you want to buy (vs. having lots of other, less relevant results mixed in to the search results). Like all Google initiatives, the proof will be in the execution, but if successful I think this has some pretty big implications. It will also accelerate the complications places like eBay and Amazon have in that rather than starting your shopping process at their site (likely most people did a few years ago), more and more people will start their shopping process at Google and only a small percentage of those user may ever end up on an eBay or an Amazon to complete their actual purchase.
