I don’t know if it’s quite the same as walking through a brick and mortar store, but it does seem to be easier to browse merchandise at a more specific category level. "Bing shopping now makes it easier to browse with product images and easy-to-use filters that let you browse across thousands of different categories," Bing says. 

In the navigation column on the left, users will see lists of product categories. "Whether you’re looking to browse by style, price, brand or type, we’ve got you covered," Bing says. It would be nice if size was included for things like shoes and clothing, but that appears to be missing (at least in the searches I conducted). 

Still, the new set-up is pretty helpful, and certainly an improvement. 

This isn’t the only enhancement Bing has made to Bing Shopping this week. They also added the addition of shareable shopping lists that allow user to show their Facebook friends what they’re thinking about buying, and ask for feedback. Another practical use is to share a Christmas list with family. 

If you want to see a demo of how the new category navigation works, you can see a video on Bing’s blog here, but it’s pretty self-explanatory, and you’ll probably get more out of just messing around with it yourself. 

Lauren Indvik reported this afternoon, "Beginning Monday, shoppers will be able to use Google’s Local Availability feature to locate books and other products at their local Borders, as well as look up how many items are in stock, prices and store directions . . ."

Then here’s a key point: Google’s "Local availability" tool only became available four days ago, and Indvik stated that this is "a feature no other book retailer offers yet."

So, at least on a temporary basis, Google seems to have given Borders one advantage over its competitors, and as we head into the holiday shopping season – when some people are making lots of real-world shopping trips and are afraid to trust delivery schedules – it could be an important one.

It should be interesting to see if the two companies pair up in any other ways in the future.

Finally, on a slightly different subject, Indvik reported, "Borders has also announced a partnership with Meetup to promote its book signings and other store events."

You can see why consumers would find such an app helpful, and you can probably see why local stores would to. This can be a powerful tool for getting customers in the door, while they’re already out shopping. 

The company recently told WebProNews that Milo.com gets over a million unique visitors, has tracked 2.8 million products, and is growing by an average of 185,000 items per month. In addition to that, the site also has inventory data for over 50,000 stores and covers 30,000 communities across the U.S. 

"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce currently accounts for less than 5 percent of U.S. retail sales, with the rest of sales still conducted offline," the company told us. "Milo.com is poised to own this trend, projected to amount to almost 40 percent of total retail sales by 2011 – a $1 trillion market." 

The Android app uses geo-location technology to identify a user’s location and return product results based on coordinates. 

"Because our users are top of mind, we knew that launching a Milo mobile app would be instrumental before the holiday shopping season—it’s ideal for both the time-strapped and price-conscious shopper," said Jack Abraham, founder and CEO of Milo.com. "Say you see the perfect pair of fall boots walking down the street. We’ll not only show you local stores that carry them, but we’ll make sure they’re available in the size and color you want, so you don’t waste a trip. And we’ll do the same for all those hot holiday toys that are just starting to hit—and fly off—your local store shelves."

Milo.com also gives users alerts notifying them when a price falls or a product becomes available.

Milo.com has over a million unique visitors, has tracked 2.8 million products, and is growing by an average of 185,000 items per month, the company tells WebProNews.

The site also has inventory data for over 50,000 stores and covers 30,000 communities nationwide.

"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce currently accounts for less than 5 percent of U.S. retail sales, with the rest of sales still conducted offline," the company tells us. "Milo.com is poised to own this trend, projected to amount to almost 40 percent of total retail sales by 2011 – a $1 trillion market."

Milo tells shoppers what’s in stock, and lets them conduct research, while providing real-time updates of local stores’ inventory and prices. It also gives users alerts, notifying them when a price falls or a product becomes available. 

Retailers can benefit by drawing in shoppers from the web to their brick and mortar stores. "It tells them what’s in stock at their local store, at what price, at the exact moment of interest," the rep notes. 

Mobile/online to offline retail will definitely factor into the holiday shopping season this year, as smart phone and tablet usage escalates. Services like Milo’s and Google’s should help in-store sales. 

According to these findings, 57% start with a search engine. 20% view a brand’s site. 18% research at a retailer. 3% use social network sites, and 2% pose a question on Twitter (it’s unclear whether Twitter is counted in the social network sites category).  

"Consumers rely on search to begin their product searches, while only 5% turn to social media," says Heidi Spector with the Google Retail Team. " Keep this in mind during the upcoming holiday season. Make sure to maximize your branding through social networks, and close on sales through your search campaigns."

I don’t think there was ever any question that people are still using search to find products and research buying decisions, but with all of the talk about social the last few years, it’s easy to get caught up in all the hype. 

That’s not to say that social is just a bunch of hype. We’ve seen time and time again where businesses benefit from their social efforts. While Google clearly has an interest in convincing people that search is still where it’s at (while still working to expand its social offerings), there is no question that search should remain a significant part of the online marketing mix. 

That said, you still have to consider HOW people are searching. It’s not just about the search engines anymore, and even within the search engines, it’s no longer just about the "ten blue links", to borrow from overused search industry lingo. 

Where do you start the buying process? Are you more apt to go to a search engine or a social network? Let us know.

Do you think your sales could be improved with a better search feature? Discuss here.

"Search quality is a big factor in changing visitors to buyers online, and in making customers happy too," Google says. "Visitors spend an average of just eight seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website, so having a good search tool is important for turning visitors into buyers. Google Commerce Search is hosted by and uses Google search technology to make online retail searching both fast and customizable — visitors to your online store can sort by category, price, brand or any other attribute."

"E-store administrators can highlight special products or connect related ones so searching is easier for their customers," the company continues. "Google Commerce Search includes a built-in spellchecker and synonyms so if visitors can’t remember exactly how to spell the particular toy or perfume or anything else they’re hunting for, Google Commerce Search will make some suggestions. Choosing the right one is up to them, though."

This clip will give you a good idea of how it works:

Customization Features

When a user searches for a product, results can be returned in a user-friendly e-commerce-style product page, where they can simply click the item they want and add it to their cart. The site owner has control over how it looks. You can filter results through parameters like category, brand, or price, and you can sort search results by any attribute.

Results can be viewed in either a list view, which is more like a classic search results page, or grid view, which is more like the product page-style. You can control which product categories are promoted at the top or sent to the bottom of results.

Promoting Specific Items

The product also comes with a promotions feature, which lets you easily promote certain items, and cross-sell related products if you choose. It also comes with automatic spellcheck, stemming, and synonyms, so that if a user doesn’t get their query exactly right, it will help guide them to what they’re looking for. I probably don’t have to tell you that any minutia that you can control in guiding customers through the checkout process can be huge for improving sales and decreasing bounce rate. Speaking of that, you can link Google Commerce Search to Google Analytics, making it easy to track various metrics.

Getting it and Keeping it Running

Google says the product can be deployed in days, and that because it is hosted on the Google platform, retailers can scale to meet their higher-demand periods, like holidays, without having to worry about slowdowns or traffic spikes.

"The hosted factor is a key feature in making GSC easy for administrators to use," Google says. "Because there’s no hardware (or software, servers, operating systems, cables, or any other equipment), admins can upload product information to Google Merchant Center and provide a few extra customization parameters – and Google Commerce Search utilizes that product feed to power their website store search."

The same feed you use for Google Product Search can be used for Google Commerce Search. This can cut down on time and tech costs, as the company points out.

Do you think Google Commerce Search boost your web sales? Tell us what you think.

Related Articles:

> Google Answers Bounce Rate Questions

> Is Bounce Rate a Google Ranking Factor?

> Google Talking Bounce Rate Again

"Video product reviews are getting a lot of buzz right now, as shoppers increasingly turn to the web to help them figure out what to buy," says Google Product Search Business Product Manager Paul Lee.

The videos appear a ways down the page, after the technical specifications area on this Nokia D90 Digital Camera page that Google provides as an example:

From the sound of it, they will pretty much always appear above the "similar items" section on product pages.

Videos come from sources like USA Today, Wired, and Digital Trends, but they are certainly not limited to these. As you can see in the above screenshot, there are videos from sources like CameraLabs, WhatDigitalCamera, DigitalRevCom, MegaWhatTV, and LarkPhoto.

Google says they take submissions, but they can’t guarantee that all submissions will be accepted. They do however, offer a few guidelines for video producers to follow if they want to be considered for inclusion.

Submitters need to add the "youtube" attribute to their data feed, and include the YouTube video ID for each product with a related YouTube video review. The IDs are the values that follow the ‘v=’ in the YouTube URL of the video. Also include UPC, ISBN, brand, and MPN information in the tag of your YouTube video review.

Product details, pricing data, and reviews will now be more accessible than ever.  To get started, all an Android user needs to do is go to Google.com, select the "Shopping" option, pick the "Scan Barcode" option, and install the app.

 (Credit: Google Mobile Blog)

Then it’s just a matter of opening the app, centering a red line over a barcode, and digesting the information Google Product Search for mobile puts on your screen.

Given that this qualifies as both nifty and practical, easy barcode scanning may be something that lends Android an edge over its rivals in consumers’ eyes.  Competitors will catch up at some point, of course – according to certain rumors, the next-gen iPhone will have the same ability – but "firsts" count for a lot in the tech world.

Unfortunately for Android, that’s where one slight problem enters the equation.  The free app called ShopSavvy has allowed for barcode scanning since last year, so there aren’t any real breakthroughs taking place here.  Also, it’s hard not to wonder how many people will want to check things online once they’re holding a product in a brick and mortar store.

Folks in both the US and the UK can give the new offering a try, anyway.

One of the new features is the addition of new data sources. Insights for Search now incorporates data from Google News, Image and Product search. This will give users better insight into what people are searching for beyond just Google Web Search. It’s not hard to imagine why this additional data would be of use.

"The new Insights for Search lets you break down search data in several ways," says Google’s Hicham Alaoui. "For starters, you can take a look at the rising News searches over the past 7, 30, or 90 days."

The second feature is category suggestion. When a user types in a search term, the tool suggests all relevant categories that the term might fit into. Google gives the example of "apple," which would bring back varied category suggestions like "Computers & Electronics," "Entertainment," and "Food & Drink."

The third feature is the ability to "drill down to specific geographic regions" (in the US) to see how search interest levels vary. At the Google News Blog, they look at an example for "March Madness" which suggests that basketball is the most popular in states like Kentucky (living here, I certainly believe that), Kansas, and Iowa.

Additional Resources

Google offers one of their famous "in 60 seconds" videos for Insights for Search, which you can view here:

Google also offers an Insights for Search gadget that you can add to your iGoogle home page for added convenience. That can be found here.

Don’t forget about YouTube Insight either. This is a great analytics tool that can help you get the most out of your videos. They recently added additional features that help you track engagement. Read my interview with YouTube Product Manager Tracy Chan for more on that as well as on all the different ways businesses can use YouTube to their advantage.

They’ve been quietly updating features of their Live Product Search, but now they have let us in on just what they’ve been up to. The Live Search blog highlighted (with screenshots) the following details:

- One stop to research product details and find good prices  You see an image and description for each product, reviews from other users, prices to help you find good deals, and spec sheets for many products.

- Feature-based refinements  See which products are reviewed positively or negatively for the features that interest you. View product features such as screen size, battery life, ease of use, and portability.

- Sorting  Sort product results by user ratings, expert ratings, and price.

- Filtering  Filter product results by specific brands, categories, and price ranges.

- Richer product details  Read expert reviews and a spec sheet describing the product.

All of those people that actually use Live Search should be ecstatic that they won’t have to go elsewhere to research products before purchasing.

It’s all about convenience.

Microsoft is promising big plans for in the coming months as well, so we’ll see what other kind of ammunition they’ve got to help them compete in the product search game.