Google's Search within Search Tool Painful, but Perhaps Inevitable

Pfreemanevans | March 24, 2008, 09:05 PM

Retailers have been mad at Google before: Gmail ads, competitive bidding on branded terms. And yet, retailers still cite search (organic and paid) as the top revenue driver among all sources. I do totally get their anger. What company would be happy to see competitive ads presented when a customer specifically asks for info about your own brand.

But there is a bigger picture issue here, even beyond the state of retail site search experiences. And that issue is that retailers will continue to face an arena that is increasingly diffused. Meaning that customers will have more and more easy-to-access avenues to discover, learn about, price compare and buy products. See our report about this issue: <em>Multichannel Retail: Understanding an Increasingly Complex and Competitive Market Google's new search feature is just another step along that path. As customers become more accustomed to non-traditional interactions as they shop, retailers will have to adjust. So, improving their own site search is a start. Also, optimizing their search terms, especially in organic search is critical. But, also, retailers should realize that this secondary search experience might send a more qualified customer and thus have a positive impact on conversion. So, retailers should watch how customers are interacting with this secondary search to understand how to better serve them when they do actually get on to their site. Because, after all, even though many shoppers use Google as part of their process, the most common reason they buy from any site is previous experience with that site. So take what ever you and learn from this Google tool and apply it to your site to reinforce customer loyalty and mitigate the impact of competitive ads.