Google Base Local Shopping Tool

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Today, Google is unveiling a tool that will help direct shoppers to local sites carrying the products they are looking for, helping make the trip to the local mall easier by helping them skip the sites that don’t have the products they are looking for.

The feature, to be unveiled Tuesday at Google’s Froogle shopping site, will pinpoint the merchants selling a specific item within a designated ZIP code. Besides displaying a map showing all the local stores carrying the merchandise, Froogle also will list price differences.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company developed the free tool to help consumers avoid the frustration of traveling to a store that no longer has an item on their shopping lists, said Marissa Mayer, Google’s director of consumer products. Source: Yahoo

We Say: Sounds good in theory, and looks really good in execution, but don’t go there expecting to see everything from your local mall listed. In the searches I have done, it is just pulling data from their search engine, it appears, and trying to match it up with the products and location you are searching for. Google is encouraging businesses to submit their product lists to Google Base, which will be the only way for it to accurately include and figure out which products are available. This will be a killer app once they get stores uploading their individual feeds.