Running an e-commerce website? Watch out for Google shopping.

October 27, 2010 1 Comment

Apparently Google launched a Beta version of “Google Shopping” (Google Achats) in France last week. The application looks very promising and might change the online shopping experience. If you sell over the internet, you definitely should consider listing your products in Google Shopping. How you index your products is explained below the screenshots.

Google Shopping France - homepage

Google Shopping France - homepage

Google Shopping - Bèta in France : search for iMac

Google Shopping - Beta in France : search for iMac

Google shopping : bèta in France - price comparison

Google shopping : beta in France - price comparison

Index your products through a feed in Google Merchant Center

In order to appear in the list, an e-commerce website or webshop needs to provide a feed of their products to the Google Merchant Center. Consequently Google indexes the data and makes them available for search and price comparison via a web interface on google.com (or in case via a country-specific url extension).

In addition, consumers are able to immediately buy the good if the e-commerce website supports Google Check-out.

Indexed enterprises in France that offer iMac on google.fr

Imagine you want to buy an iMac and want to know the perfect place and price for your purchase.
Imagine you’re a go-getter and will search for all places online where you can buy an iMac.
Imagine you accurately archive all information in a spreadsheet so to compare the offers.

How long would that take? How long does it take with Google Shopping?

Can you see the benefits already?

Companies that partner with Google within the “market of the search term ‘iMac’ on Google Shopping France” are listed below.

Just one more thing: online shopping is a global phenomenon

Isn’t it? Why roll out this service by country then?

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The future of printed pictures

March 13, 2010 Leave a comment

The future of photography?

The future of photography?

The profession of “photographer” is dead

 

In today’s digital and mobile world, everyone is a photographer. People are mobile and carry along mobile devices that most of the time can take (high) quality pictures. What’s more, the digital technology allows to take as many pictures as one can imagine. In the end, one will have made at least one picture that has the appearance of a professional photo.

“Everyone a celebrity”

I believe the “end of the photographer” should be understood within the realms of the “15-minutes-of-fame-for-everyone society”. Actually this means it’s not the end of a certain profession. Celebrities still exist. Photographers still exist. The border however to enter those categories is now hazier then ever because of the individual’s empowerment brought along by digital technologies.

Worth a large format print?

Worth a large format print?

Upload & pay online

Back to the pictures. People take pictures everywhere, anytime. Whether with a point&shoot, reflex or a mobile phone. Most of the time those picture are used to post online to a social media profile. Rarely those pictures are printed. The future of printed pictures however is via an online workflow. Upload your own “professional photo”, set the characteristics, pay and … there you go 2 or 3 days later you receive a professionally crafted large format print in your mailbox.

Filed under Business, Culture & Arts, Marketing, Media, Software & Technology Tagged with , , , ,

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